The "art" of safety wiring.....

A lot of people safety wire their fasteners. Most people have a good idea why safety wire is important on some components, but they are lacking in the how, and don't accomplish the intended results. This guy knows what he's talking about. Watch and learn......

Know how most guys.......

......have a swingarm bike, and they bring the frame to me to have it hardtailed ? Well, Tommy's bringing me one of his bikes that has an aftermarket hardtail frame, and he wants me to splice this swingarm section into it.

I took this OEM rear section to the blaster today.......never throw anything away, right? This should be interesting for you to follow along on.

As my random thought process is wont to do..........

One of my favorite blogs out there is Jon Patrick's The Selvedge Yard, and I have it linked here on my blog. I'm a religious reader of TSY, and you'll find it in my links list on the R/H side. One of Jon's recent posts is about a movie that is on just about everybody's "favorites" list - American Graffiti. The direct link is here:
http://theselvedgeyard.wordpress.com/

Be sure to read the "Comments" section in the post, because it contains a couple more links from a couple people who left them there in that section, that provide a wealth of background information on the movie itself. In one of the links, it provides a mini-bio of Wolfman Jack, one of the driving forces in AG that ties the whole movie together as only the Wolfman could have done.

While I was reading Wolfman's bio, I recalled The Wolfman's move from across the Border, back into L.A. in '66, from reading his auto-biography Have Mercy! Confessions Of The Original Rock 'n' Roll Animal. A great read if you can find the book, I might add. Virtually driven/legislated out by the Mexican Government, Wolfman Jack had headed for L.A., to re-establish radio station XERB on this side of the Border. The studio/offices he set up were on Sunset Blvd., just a couple blocks east of Crescent Heights.

On a little triangle at that intersection of Sunset and Crescent Heights, sat Pandora's Box, a former beatnik hangout, now given way to the Counter-culture/hippie movement. If the name Pandora's Box doesn't ring a bell, it was the epicenter of the famous "Riots" that occurred in '66 on the Sunset Strip, and that incident inspired Steven Stills to write For What it's Worth, and also the exploitation B movie Riot On Sunset Strip as well, filmed and released a mere 6 weeks after the Riots went down. Below is an excerpt from The Wolfman's book, where he relates what he experienced while he had his offices there in that time period in '66. Also, here's a link I found, explaining the full story of Pandora's box from the great website Laurel Canyon Stories:

http://seastwood.com/backup310/pandoras.aspPandora's Box, circa 1966.

"Even back then (My note: Wolfman Jack referring to the late '50's-early '60's) The City wanted to tear down Pandora's Box. It created a traffic flow problem for all the people trying to get home to their expensive pads in the Hollywood Hills. Mostly, though, the pressure was on to demolish the club because the hippies were a lot crazier than the beatniks who used to hang out there a few years earlier. They smoked dope in public, flashed bare boobies at people driving down Sunset, and balled each other right on the sidewalk. They also attracted a lot of greasy, sex-hungry biker dudes into the scene. Plus the L.A Free Press, the local underground newspaper, had their offices underneath the club. So, Pandora's Box kinda had The Establishment pissed off in several different directions".

Pretty current satellite photo of the former location of Pandora's Box.

" Lou (My note: referring to his wife), for one, was glad to see Pandora's Box go. She was still a very proper Southern Belle, and every time she walked from our offices to the bank, she had to pass in front of the club. There she was, striding along in her nylons and high heels, dressed like she just stepped out of a Beverly Hills shop window, while the Hells Angels and Iron Horseman were standing around, smoking pot, and saying, 'Hey baby, how about climbin' on my hog, and taking' a magic ride?'. "

Don't short change yourself on the rest of the Laurel Canyon Stories's site, it's a wealth of historical information on The Sunset Strip, it's clubs, the "scene" in the '60's, and Laurel Canyon in the '60's and before. Just remember to allow yourself several hours, or bookmark the site to go back to in the future:
http://seastwood.com/backup310/default.asp

A little variation.......

The above oil tank, is the one that we used on Part-timer Steve's bike. Originally I built this tank for my FXTT bike, but with the rear frame section shortened up 2", it wouldn't fit - too thick. When It came time to build Steve's bike, he wondered if we could work the tank in on his build. As far as length went, it fit just fine, but it was too wide for the Paughco frame. So, off came 2 1/4" from the L/H side, and voila! It just fit.

This tank was done when I was just getting the hang of TIG welding, but it was a good design, and 50,000 mi. later, it's still hanging in there. No leaks or cracks whatsoever, so I know this style of tank can take it out on the road, in a rigid-framed bike. If Steve can't bust it, nobody can!

This time around (because I have the room, due to the CFL's 2" stretch "over stock" in the back legs), I kept the fender at full length (Steve used a half-fender), and shaped the oil tank's back plate to fit around it, with an 1/8" space between the fender and the tank. I made the frame mounts for the oil tank next, very similar to the Softail's rubber insert mounts for their flatside gas tanks. Once I had a "platform" to work from, I rolled the main part of the tank in 1 pc. (Steve's front was 3 pcs.) to fit the contour of the back plate, with radiused bends at it's front corners. Easier said than done, haha!

The feed and vent lines will come from the lower part of the tank - save for the return line, which will enter the L/H side of the tank just below the secondary drive belt's top run, through an in-tank flush mount Doherty oil filter setup, that uses the same canister filter as the old Shovel 4 speed electric start oil tanks did.

Yeah, you read right, I'm using a 1 1/2" wide secondary belt drive. I don't need to remind you that H-D has been running rear belts for over 2 decades, Phil Ross ran them, so does Sugar Bear. Nobody ever said anything to Indian Larry for running secondary belts on every bike he built from Voodoo Chili to Mr. Tiki's Shop Droppings. Larry, Phil, and Sugar bear knew where it was at, so to all you smarty-pants guys that love to type "Haw, haw...belts are for pants, haw, haw...", I'm gonna tell you guys that "Chains are for wallets, haw, haw". Belts are pretty tough, and if you get them aligned as they should be, tensioned where they need to be run, and use good quality belts, they can take some really hard punishment....stay tuned.

Third wheel......

"One phone call does it all....."

Near as I can figure, with some rare exceptions, I've used Fab Kevin brake brackets on every bike I've built over the last 11 years. Kevin is one of these extremely rare, talented individuals that you can call on the phone, tell him what you're doing, and have parts that show up a week later that practically install themselves after you unwrap them.

These stainless beauties came yesterday from Kevin. The one on the left is for a Brembo dual piston Ducati 999 rear caliper w/34mm pucks, that's going on the springer for my CFL single downtube bike. It's a full-floating bracket for an 11 1/2" rotor.

The bracket on the right is for the rear of the CFL, and it'll mount a dual piston Nissin rear caliper from a Kawasaki ZX14. I cut the softail-style brake mounting tab off the frame, and the rear caliper will now hang at 6 o'clock. Kevin had to run a special CAD on this one, to work with the 10 1/4" oddball diameter Grimeca rotor that Dick Allen used. All done over the phone with Kevin, while he typed it all into CAD while we spoke!

Perfect parts, and.......perfect hair! You're the Master, and thank you once again for being the key to translating what I have in my head into functioning components.
http://www.fabkevin.com/home.htm

Hey....they named a rose after me!

The Irish Rich Marbled. Rightly so! They were probably inspired by my rosey (cough, cough....) disposition, and outlook on life.

William Van Dyke "Swapmeet Special"

I looked all over the internet for this clip, and the only one I could find was on YouTube, from a Speed Channel program clip. It's William Van Dyke's Swap Meet Special, done live at the Buffalo Chip, during Sturgis 1982. Check the size of the crowd at the Chip! Also, check out the makeup of the crowd at the Chip.....a little different cut of attendees back then.

The clip originated from the the Easyriders' Video Magazine #1, in 1988. The good part of this Van Dyke segment is you'll get not only see Van Dyke at his best, you'll also get a couple quick shots of Phil Ross kickin' up his heels at about :46, and 1:00 into it. But.... this is such a sanitized version of this clip by Speed Channel, I almost thought about not posting it. I can maybe understand them blurring out the boobs, but they cut an entire verse of the song out of the video - for no other reason I can think of - other than not wanting to piss off some advertisers, I guess. The missing verse goes, to the roaring approval of the crowd:

"Well, I don't want no Honda, or no Kow-a-sock-ee,
Them Japanese motor-sickles is a little too plastic for me!
So Give me a Harley-Davidson, that's the one for me.
Hey, it's a swapmeet special, I rode it over for you to see".

Do yourself a favor, and hunt up a copy of the Easyriders Video Magazine #1, it's not bad. Segments like the Van Dyke one, and others like "JD John" Cameron and Lance Tidwell talking about, and riding their Flxi sidecar rigs make the video worth getting - it's only in VHS format as far as I know.