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Bob's California Custom |
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Hi Rick, Super ugly mongrel, but the guy said it had recently had a whole top end job - I removed the stuff I needed to finish the restore and dithered a few days about what to do with it. I finally decided this would be a good time to depart from the normal, rigid, oem, nos, chrome, powder coated, silver cabled rut I was in and make a bike I could ride and thrash and enjoy. I ground off the passenger pegs-got rid of the center stand, sent all the bare metal stuff off to Reid Metal finishing to be zinc plated and found a paint store that was able to duplicate Harley Orange (no easy feat-and I have the formula if anybody wants it). I ordered some tires, painted and hung the frame from the ceiling and let my imagination go. A friend of mine had a little seat (he called it a flat track seat) that I bought. This was to be a budget project that all in all pretty much stayed that way. The bike was $200 and I put another $630 into it somehow. When I got to the engine, I cleaned and painted it and stuffed it in the frame and only then did I decide to pull the plug and peek inside - imagine my surprise when it sparkled back like a new nickel. Not only was the guy telling the truth, but it had never been started. Little by little it came together and when there was enough there I fed a little gas into the carb hose with an eye dropper and it started and idled on the second kick. I put an Electrolux vacuum cleaner pipe onto the header and voila. I wish I could impress you with talk of Rickman parts and other exotic stuff but it's just a lot of homemade, hand bent sheet metal and sore hands. By the way-those wheels are the old rusty steel wheels stripped and zinc
plated - very cheap compared to chrome - I think less than $60 for both.
I have the zinc formula if you want it.
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