Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Remember this goofy frame?

People ask me if the drugs back in the '60's were that good......I rest my case.
It started out as a Pan frame, then somebody added those elongated new wishbone downtubes (actually, all the way to the bottom seatpost crossover), that swooped forward half-way up to a sketchy Knuck bullneck. For good measure, they decided that the backbone should be 1 1/4" tubing to tie everything together, then there's those "mounts" hanging on the backbone - I was told the lower one was the top motor mount, and the upper was a coil mount (?).

Everything over the years on the frame from the seatpost-forward has been cut, bent, and welded over numerous times, but actually, the frame wasn't bad structurally overall, it just needed a lil' rehab.
The client wanted to keep some of the original "flavor" behind the old mods, but he needed to keep the rake about the same, because he has a vintage long Denvers springer to use. All I have left on the frame is to do is the splice welds, and to make a nice triangulated top motor mount from 1" tubing for it.

I replaced the old downtubes with straight ones, went back to the 1 1/2" backbone, and slipped that over a short section of the old one at the seatpost, and ordered one of John's (Hardtail Choppers) OEM-style raked replacement necks for it. The client is thinking a set of OEM 3 1/2 gal. fatbobs on this, but that may change. Should be interesting......
Check out how sweet this neck is! John can do his OEM-style necks in any rake from 30 to 45 degrees. This one is a 40 degree. The raked necks take a little while longer to set up and cast, so keep that in mind if you order one.

The only difference between this casting and his standard 30 degree neck, is that there isn't any lock boss on the other side of the neck, both sides look the same as the photo above. 
Give John a call if you're interested in one of these OEM-style, pre-raked necks. Make sure you tell him you saw it on my blog:

1 comment:

Unknown said...

That neck & frame work is tight. Gonna have to go with a mag & maybe a king sporty to keep it proper. Nice work Rich!