FOR SALE – “Mothership”

1980 Shovelhead. Titled in my name. Brand new top end rebuild including pistons, cylinders and rings. Rockers and valves we’re cleaned up and brought back to spec. New AB cam and tappets. Tin inner/outer primary on the drive side covering a primo 1.5″ primary drive. Everything is built in an old jammer frame. I’ve put about 3k miles on it since finishing the motor work. Joe Hunt mag with early cast style mag body. 70’s CCW girder. New Avons front and rear (16 and 19). Chrome has about 2 seasons on it. I’ve ridden this bike all the way to hell and back. Starts and runs like a top. This bike has been really really good to me and it’ll be real good to anyone else looking to get into a big twin. Bring cash and ride it home. I’m not willing to part out so don’t ask. $7k takes it ($6500 without the mag). If interested, email me – info@speedclubinc.com

74″ of Love – part 2

Finally got the bottom end completed. Got that Andrews AB cam spaced out proper. Cone back on. Tappets and hydro lifters cleaned and neatly back in place. New rings on .060 over pistons. Cylinders torqued back down and I even took a minute to set the timing. For now Im shelving the motor and Ill come back to the top end when I have more free time. I’ve got a couple pairs of heads that I need to have blasted before I reassemble so I’ll just save up the extra scratch and service all of them at the same time. This thing is looking real good and should run even better. Much thanks to Gator and Bear on this one. They both really laid some knowledge on me during the entire rebuild. Learning shovels from the best in the biz is a humbling (and equally rad) experience. More from the chopper blog soon.

Bad Day at the Track

Motor detonation sucks. Some folks rock fire blankets these days but way back when, you took an entire top end to the chest and walked that sh*t off! This was a cool little photo I found today while researching some drag racing info.

Save A Buck ~ Fix it

The sh*t I’ll do to save some scratch is pretty low. My XS timing chain snapped on me while bombing back into the Twin Cities last September. After I pulled the top end off, I could see that the teeth on the cam were perfect. The crank sprocket on the other hand… DESTROYED. Not a single tooth left. Unfortunately, this crank sprocket is an obsolete part meaning I’m up sh*t creek. My options are wait it out for  an old xs motor on Craigs list for around $100 beans or just swap the crank and buy a gasket set on eBay.

I went with the replacement crank and a gasket set. The crank ran me $1.99 and the gasket set… $60. Other than an hour of open heart surgery, at least I know I’m running a clean motor with new timing chain and gaskets. The top end was still well within tolerances so I’m gonna let sleeping dogs lie with that one.