Okay the bow by blow. Too tired last night to write the story and my pics link wasn't working. Everytime I pasted it the link would not stick. I'll try and match pics to the story later for Alan's idea. Maybe some of the guys can add their two cents into the story for the final post if it makes it to the other section?

7 a.m. The alarm goes off and I go to check the HCMF board. I yell to Rosemary (the wife) that roadkill posted at 6:02 a.m. that he was up and rolling out the door in a few minutes which means he might be here soon! junkyardjon posted at 6:40 a.m. the same. Damn! I better get my shit together as it seems my guest builders may be MORE excited than me!?!

9 a.m. After the nickel tour for Fisherman of the shop, the bikes, the big block camaro and other collected items we get going. Immediately roadkill took the lead. Thank man, you are a fine foreman. We get the wood box build stands in place and start with Amen springs installation. RK should make a video of this for the board.

We right away notice some problems with working with 30+ year old parts that have not been cared for properly. After more cleaning of parts roadkill got the springs set up and we are off to teh races! By this time other guys are arriving. I got a pic of 74rat getting out of his ride. Can you say CADILAC? WOW! I think I'll have a shirt made for him that says "My other ride is a Caddy" image for him to wear when he is out on the bike with his Flint buddies.

After more intros as people arrive we get back to building. I had cleaned the motor, kinda buffed up the covers a bit and sprayed the whole deal with Duplicolor High Gloss Engine Black. Boy, all those hours of toothbrushes and Q-tips paid off cause it look S-W-E-E-T even if the covers are far from perfect. Just to see, I had the carbs (reworked, polished, and painted by Houndog) mounted and yep, I knew this was gonna be cool.

Daddyschatz helped me finish wire brushing and clear coating the frame the previous night. Although I was sticking to my guns about making a working man's ride, I was still wondering if the idea of bare metal on the frame and many parts was gonna look as good in real time as it did in my overly vivid mind. We have some buffed up stuff but there are also many parts that have a wire wheeled cleaned up look without to much shiny stuff. We sprayed the clear and the slightly darker pewter look came into effect. Bingo! The look I was after. Daddyschatz knew before me and asked immediately, "how long til someone else does the same"? Many other little parts were wired wheeled, buffed or polished ahead of time because I really wanted to work with clean parts and I wanted anyone that participated to be proud of the build.

You almost can't do anything with such tight space issues in an Amen frame without the motor in, SO, in went the motor. WOW, our first look at that shiny black motor in that raw clear frame. Now we could see we may have a pretty cool looking build here that will certainly look different than the other great bikes our guys here have been able to produce. I start thinking "okay, maybe this will be good enough to be shown alongside the others in hondachopper.com gallery".

We still did not have the gas tank from LRT's quick paint job so we set off to working on the seat pan mods and hinge mounting ideas and install. What we came up with is super cool. Roadkill had a door hinge to use but in the end a tiny little seat hinge off 74rats bike from before got the nod. We modified all the parts and seat pan to work together. Crazycats sent a seat to be part of the build that was an old style bicycle style. After sitting on it decided I need MORE (big guys like me need more under them) and cut and modified it a day before with a new rolled seat pan attached to the top. I saved the pad which will be made into a pillow and laced to the pan this week. We made perches for the BRAND NEW springs sent over by Dabigsexy and although very firm will be just what my weight needs! image Thanks boys for the parts! I'll put your names on the tank for ya.

One of the biggest concerns was what to do with the electrics and battery as I was really wanting to use this round chrome oil bag I bought from LRT. After much consideration we solved the problems involved. That 74rat does fine work! We got pics of how he modified STOCK motor side fittings from Honda with smaller hose barbs so we could use the HD size lines. People take note as it is VERY COOL! We did some running around for this/that all day and some fittings were on that list. Roadkill made this a cool mount plate and before you knew it the oil bag was hanging. The previous night he was at home making that really cool battery hold down that he powdered clear with brass tie downs. I have no idea why I would deserve such extraordinary treatment!? Thanks Matt. I'll never get tired of telling you that. The Clutch CD rocks! image Looks like the battery hold down unit was perfectly built as it fit within fractions of an inch in many directions to solve one very big tight spaced problem. This guy can fabricate and his work is really professional looking!

While some of this was going on, junkyardjon, daddyschatz, feederpig and I were assembling wheels, brakes, bars and the front end. I had boxes of assorted stock parts from different years that we kept crawling through ALL DAY LONG for the "special nut or bolt" that these bikes have. We even wound up using some parts from this bin as the project developed as there was not a frim plan on the use of every little part.

I finally get the call from Rosemary that the LRT package arrived at the house. Off I went in the rain (all day) to get it. As soon as I made it back to the shop we spent a good 15-20 minutes oggling the work and sizing it up on the frame. Although no clear yet, it already looks badass and the black-gold withpurple flames fits, and I really mean it, perferct with the look! LRT, you da man. Thank you, thank you, thank you for hooking me up with just the right amount of paint for this build. Your offer to paint as part of the build plays a significant role in the overall look, cheers. All of the guys signed the gold part of the tank and I will add the few others before it goes back with the fender for clear.

After much fiddling around with how to mount the tank we decided, partly because of the petcock location to run it along the neck gusset line rather than higher up on the backbone line (frisco) like I had originally thought. We drilled the frame, made some spacers and padded the frame for the tunnel. Shazam! Done.

Now we could mount the coils. We nneded to know tank placement because earlier in the day we figured the best spot for coils on this ride was gonna be under the gas tank like two NOS bullets. Yep, good idea! After whipping up a few plates and welding to the frame, we tried it out. Perfect! And the coils are up tight and out of the way instead of of crowding that forward downtube area, which I really do not care for much.

My dad has a "friend" who is completely jealous of our shop in the storage facility where we rent. He has caused many problems for us in the past and has called the building codes department before about how we "use" the building. We have always gotten away with "whatever" because the owner and my dad are friends. When the second building out there was built they built into the plan an end bay with power for us so we could do "more" than just storage there. Well, thats not exactly "code" for that construction and this jerk-off guy has blown the whistle on us before. Well, as luck would have it this prick must have seen all of us there earlier in the day and called the Fire Marshall. Around 6:30 p.m. he showed up and wanted to shut us down which kinda put a damper on the rest of the build. We, of course just kept truckin'. My dad chased his as off and after called the owner to tell him some shit is gonna go down this week. We'll see? The guys got lots of pics of the Fire Marshall and his deputy. image I don't think he liked being photographed either! image

Roadkill had made an electric box a while back for his bike out of a bread box. It is perfect for this look and has found a new home. It should finish the main issues with the electrics and make wiring a snap this week down at 74rats place.

I had hand-sanded the triple trees and shot with the engine paint ahead of time. It looks good and adds a little darkness to all that metal up front. We got the bars on and starting figuring rear fender location. We decided a very tight style of mounting will work as the Amen springs DO NOT squish much, even with my 255# bouncing around on there. A simple round rod fender support was decided what will be best instead of the big sissybar look.

It was starting to get late, 8 p.m. and we still needed to get to my house to eat so we called it a day. I wanted everyone to do their signatures on the tank and I still wanted to get the bike on the ground for a few pics before we left. And off we went to my house for Kobe beef New York Strip, Adobo style pork ribs with chicken, heirloom tomato from our garden and fresh mozzarella cheese with basil, herb oil and balsamic drizzle, a mix of different salads and Rosemary's chocolate chip cookies for the sweet ending. We had a great time and again, thank you so much to the guys for giving up their time from their family and gas money to drive so far in the rain to help see this through! Much appreciated. We'll finish up the wiring and get this thing rolling this week. Final pics to be taken on a nice sunny day!

The other guys will fill in on what I missed as my fingers hurt today and all this typing ain't easy!
Cheers my brothers, jps


"In the wind, with my mind on my money and my money on my mind"...now I just gotta get some.

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