Showclass magazine peoples choice build off

Showclass Magazine is hosting a build off for 1 lucky builder to be included in the Born Free 5 Chopper show in June. The first round judging is being done now till the end of January. This will whittle the field down to the final 12 that will be judged in California the night before the Born Free show. The winner will go on the be the final invited builder at Born Free.

My favorite bike is #1 Jay Roche from Special 79 Fabrications Ironhead Cafe styled bike. Vote for what you like!

Vote here showclassmag 

making a block off plate for the ironhead

in my continuation of removing the starter i needed to make a block off plate for the giant hole left in the side of the motor, i remembered having a nice big scrap of aluminum laying around so i took the old gasket and traced it out, after looking for a number of different ways to cut it out i found some jigsaw blades and put my little black & decker to work!

if i can get my buddy to clean up the edges on a mill that'll be tits but worse case scenario i'll run it against the grinding wheel and work the ol file on it, couple holes and clean up the face and it'll be a damn fine block off plate...............FUCK i forgot i was gonna put a tab on the top to mount a toggle switch!! Shit, damn, fuck, shit! ( i literally didn't remember till i looked up and saw this last picture- Shit)

Going full retard

fuck it i know they say not to but im gonna be the cool guy, ya know that guy that your all waiting for while he sweats his ass off and hyper extends his knee while your sitting there idling waiting to go, i'm taking the electric starter OFF! not because i'm afraid of the wiring and making it work or look good but fuck me the thing is huge! it sticks way out if i'm gonna cut the cam and sprocket cover up (and even after all the struggles i'm still determined to) then there's no way i can leave this thing hanging way out there. shit changes and for all i know ill put it back on well before the bikes even done but for now i'm taking it off and making block off plates

 

this ain't my daily rider, hell i've heard ironheads are a love hate relationship, seeing as i don't love her all that much to begin with it may not take much for me to hate it if shit goes wrong to many times in the coming year, but for now its an exercise in chopping and making it look and function, the way i see it is i own it and i own it for more than its worth- what would be the point in selling it and losing money?? as long as i don't go dumping a bunch more in it, if i can get some pleasure out of this mechanical deathtrap maybe it'll make me forget the $$ spent

Slack ASS

havent gotten much done lately, managed to get a couple friends to hold the motor while i twisted out the other head bolts, so now i have the cam side off, the primary open, and the heads off............ whats next???

gotta get my hands on a special tool to get the clutch off and than the transmission pulled out

 I suppose if I cant make this one up myself I don't deserve to have an ironhead, or atleast i wont have a running one very long. so that's next on the docket make this tool, get the tranny out, shift rod swapped out and start putting it all back together fixing and gasketing as i go.

just sold a parts bike Kawasaki i had kicking around so now the question is what do i NEED the most.........

Off with its Heads!!

so with a little shame i admit this Ironhead literally got shoved in the corner mid-work when the creep machine came into my life, so much so that not only did i leave the exhaust off but spark plugs out too, although kept in the steel shed the whole time i feared that the 2 years (give or take a month) in upstate NY in a town that mines salt, may have got into the cylinders and surface rusted up or pitted the bore, so as the title says off with the heads!

rocker boxes besides alot of silicone, there was some fresh oil up here

 the bore looks EXCELLENT! smooth even looks like there might be some cross hatching still there, probably just clean up the carbon on the head and fresh gasket.

the only real negative to report was i only got this far, because the previous rebuilder must have epoxied or jb welded the fuckin bolts in! 2 ft pipe on the ratchet managed to get one side off gonna need a friend to hold the motor or build some sort of motor stand/craddle to hold it for the other head- id leave it assuming that the front probably looks like the rear but seeing everything else I've run into im not taking any chances.

suppose its time i crack open this S&S seeing as its off, been sitting and I've never been inside one..........

DAMN IT!!!

I'm finding all sorts of cut corners and boogered up things on this ironhead im tearing down hell 40yrs and who knows whos hands in it i suppose its to be expected

got the primary off and heres my newest discovery:

an angled or bent tensioner

which I'm assuming led to the front of the chain slapping up and doing this

here are the locations of the damage the worst being in the middle, obviously theres not gonna be oil sitting or leaking from the top so im hoping my #1 concern would be if the chunk of metal on the bottom of the middle broken hole falls it would obvioulsy jam up and fuck things inside there, with all the feed back im getting from the forums my plans to tear out the clutch and tranny (which i was gonna do anyways) clean it all up with soap/water, carb cleaner and find someone thats local and confident enough to weld it back up, than ill re-tap the holes.......... wish me luck!

Justified Tear down

Take it apart and do it right, don't assume the last guy did cause chances are he didn't. such is the case with my nearly 40 year old bike here.

what started out like this

without much work or time turned into this

 

time to start choppin!!

the lesson learned here- tons and tons of gooped on silicone, looks like there may be some chunks of paper gaskets here and there- total mess, also found a broken advance weight return spring, needless to say im going through it all

and maybe worst of all genuine HD "engineering"

going back to right side shift- should be interesting!

Productive night- Tearing it down

well in preparation for hurricane sandy i spent my day of rest doing just the opposite emptying out and organizing my basement putting everything up on pallets to keep them out of the water should my basement flood, well after the bulk of the rain had come and gone and the basement remained dry i spent the next night breaking down the ironhead

IRONHEAD in pieces- let the fun begin

 

 

 

 

and now for my slightly more organized motorcycle stash, its not the parts bins and labeling id like, but its a work in progress (like everything else i own)

 

 

Youd think we werent doing anything!

its that strange time of year where the weather is either complete shit or gorgeous, you dont put the bike up or tear it down in the off chance mother nature throws a nice day at you on one of your days off, so far all ive managed to do is clear out some space in the steel shed i plan to build in this winter, started to firm up some ideas, plans and parts- probably the most significance change being im going back to the swingarm!

just gotta get the red/black bike on the left out move the 93 to the front and i should have a decent amount of space to work around it

Spent the other night hanging out at Tim's going over ideas and plans for his ironhead winter project too and it looks like it will be a lot of fun.

 

you would be a AMAZED what throwing on a Biltwell seat on this thing did for it

pictures of everything soon to follow once the actual breaking down, sparks start flying and knuckles start getting busted- until then ill share the pics ive scowered the internet for of my #1 inspiration for this build

a shovel built by Hidemoto, yeah i know mines not a shovel, and things arent gonna work or look quite the same (for a # of reasons) but hey i said inspiration not that im making an exact copy

Time for the IRON

well its been back burnered for damn near 3 years now, but its time to shine has finally come, this winter im going through the 1975 ironhead ive had tucked in the corner for to long, big plans, big ideas, nothings new or groundbreaking but things ive been dreaming about and wanting to do since day 1. im going all in taking the plunge and gonna try it all

 here's how it looked the day i brought it home

 

after hooking up a fresh battery and cranking it only to see oil spewing out of the the crank vent, i was beyond lost- young, dumb and full of piss and vinegar i said fuck it figured it needed a total rebuild and shortly there after it looked like this

why stop there, Hammer in Hand bolt on hardtail

 this is essentially how its sat the past few years, lowered front end, half made pipes, custom one off handlebars

 

the list of ideas are as follows:
- lower the front end even more
- split the heads
- cut the cam cover
- pull the transmission and put the longer shift shaft in to make it shit on the right
- make the mount for dual piston nissan calipers in the back
- tank mounts
- new pipes
- gonna try and modify or make from scratch a horseshoe tank that doesn't look to far forward/to far back
- fender
- seat
- wiring
- lights
- paint

yeah atleast ill have something to do all winter!!! did i mention the only place i have to work on this is in a little steel shed! awesome