Saturday, December 29, 2012

Keeping The South Bay Torch Burning

A little over a week ago Joe Hurst called and said he was stopping by Steve Sharp's to drop off some stuff for his Panhead's rebuild. Steve is a long time Southbay Chopper builder who happens to live just up and around the corner from me and is putting together Joe's Pan. Joe needed the top end done as the bottom was already assembled. It seems a recent conversation about needing a sissy bar built turned to engine work. It's now very likely that Steve will help Joe with many aspects of the whole chrome frame bike.
The mighty harley V-twin. It's always an impressive sight when out and up on a stand. 

Steve was in the process of installing a right side electric starter on this clean Panhead which he helped a local rider build last summer.

I just found out that Steve builds Dick Allen style springers based on his old friend Fats' versions. Fats used a bolt pinned lower tree and used rectangular stock for the lower spring perch, where as Dick welded his trees and used round stock for the perch. Steve has perfected them over the years and follows Dick's theory that the bike's center of gravity is the most important factor in building a long bike that handles well. This one has off set trees as suggested by Mike Torres and per the owners request. Fats' and Dick's springers were always inline. Sugar Bear's are off set.
Here's a shot of most of the bike.

I've seen Steve blasting up the street on this same bike for the last 25 years. I had never met him in all those years, so one day about 2 years ago, I dropped by and introduced myself. One of these days, I hope to do a feature of his bike. He's also a master mechanic and drag boat builder/racer and has won many races with his home built boats.

It's great to see a couple of South Bay Chopper Veterans pair up and still doing what they've always done. Build Choppers!

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Big Roy & Little Bob

More photos courtesy of Kerry Crist.
Little Big Men. Little Bob cruising with Big Roy.

Big Roy built this trike after losing his leg. Check out the unusual 'sprung' dual beer keg seats. It wasn't too uncommon for beer kegs to show up as seats or tanks on all kinds of custom vehicles in those days, but two with springs set these apart from others.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Rarin' to Go?

I don't know about Rarin' to Go, but I'm back from a very long absence. As a matter of fact the last 10 posts plus last month's header were actually done on the fly. I'll try to update the blog more often now that I'm back. There's still one big problemo. My ancient computer's operating system and browser is now way out of date, so until I rectify that, I'm stuck with using my wife's lap top for the blog.