HALL OF FAME
On this page is a showing of some of the bikes we have built and some of the bikes built by our customers using our frames and parts.
If you have a bike with one of our frames, send us a pic & we'll post it on here.
Andy's Rubbermount Sportster.
Andy came from a sportsbike background; he wanted to do a sportster that was fast & handled well and was a bit different. We built a chrome moly frame and used a combination of Buell & FXR parts to rubbermount the engine. We modified a GSXR swingarm and basically set up the rolling chassis. Matts engineering built up a rather special engine. We met Andy at a recent event. He's very pleased with the result. To say the least.
Daves Long Shovel
We built Dave the frame & one or two bits for this in September '05. We'd almost forgotten about it until this pic appeared on the HDRCGB site from the '07 Oswestry run. What a cutie! Photo by Baza.
Martins Mutant
Another fine mutant style build up. Martins from Ireland, we built him the frame, oiltank and other parts in November '06. Looks like Martin has made an excellent job of it. Click on the pic for more.
Dakota Black revisited
We first built 'Dakota Black' 10 years ago for our friend Jim Brown. (its near the bottom of this page here ) He brought it in last autumn for a makeover. Finally finished. Click the pic for more.
Jocks last ride.
Jock passed away last October. A regular customer who became a friend; a big man in every sense, and a long-time chopper club member. Seen here picking up the 'best chop' award at the '06 Bulldog bash. A full account of Jocks swansong bike was published in BSH Dec. '06. Rest in peace, mate.
Briz's Beezer Bobber
We built this last year, really as an accessory for our '59 El-Camino pick up, but its attracted quite a lot of attention, having made the front cover of 2 magazines. Made a change from doing HDs.
Teds Shovel
Finally done, Teds rigid shovel has been awhile in the gestation, but well worth the wait. Click the pic for more on the Krazy Horse site. The rolling chassis is on the Rigids page.
Mark's Nitrous Nightmare!
Mark (thats him) kindly sent us a CD of his finished bike. He tells the story:
"Built in the comfort of the dining room from only the cheapest components, it finally chugged into life on the 27th of April. An uncomfortable evil handling pig-on-stilts, the subtlety of Hitler with a hangover, and I love it."
Can you spot the nitrous bottles set into the tank? See the frame on the Rigids page
Harry's KH BSA A65
Harry is a customer of Krazy Horse who having seen their Zero sportster, decided that this was the way he'd like his BSA project to go. Krazy horse asked us to produce a suitable frame (see the rolling chassis in the 'work in progress' section) and this is the finished result. Paint was in this instance deemed unnecessary! Click on the pic for more images on the KH site. Oh yeah; thanks for the single malt, Harry!
Neil's Mutant Sportster
O'l Neil's done it again! Sold his Shovel bobber (below) and got the hankering for the Redneck Mutant style of thing. We made him the frame & oiltank in September '06, and sure enough, it was done in about February '07. And done very well by the looks of it
When we made Robs mutant style frame (below), we never thought we'd do another one like it. If we had, we'd have recorded some dimensions and saved having to figure it all out again! Straight after doing Neil's frame, we did Martin's (above). See the Rigids frame page.
Nigel's FXR Softail
Nigel is a regular customer who likes to have multiple projects on the go. He came to see us in the summer of '05 with the intention of getting a new chop done by September, (which was about 6 weeks away!) so he could take it with him on a planned tour of Germany. We pulled our fingers out and got the rolling chassis done by the beginning of August. Nigel had an FXR donor bike, so all that was necessary was paint, polish, wiring and final assembly. Nige's a sprayer so the paint was no problem. To see the finished bike, you'd never guess that there was any haste in its build, but then, this isn't exactly Nige's first project!
John Dekko's Shovel
We made the frame for Johns shovel back in December '04. He soon finished the bike and sent us this pic, which we saved but forgot to post it it here for some reason. Well its here now!. A radical 8" stretch in the (single) down tube and 12" over forks.
Cool bike, John.
Graham's XLST
While we're being forgetful, we're also late in putting this one up. Its the XLST on the 'work in progress' page. Graham certainly made a nice job of it, even if it did take a little while to finish..
Griff's big-tube Shovel
With a good few miles on his last project, (see his softail panhead below), Griff set about building a fat (280) tyre, big tube shovel rigid. We made the frame in the summer of 2004 & he finished it early this year (06) Nice going Griff.
Rob's Mutant style Buell: 'Rum'un'
Rob was particularly taken with the Texas based Redneck Engineering Mutant style, but not with Rednecks frame prices, or their lack of interest in selling outside the US! He brought us a pic & we made him one. Top Suffolk chop builder Morph did the rest, and very nicely too.
Tony's Merseyside monster
Tony & Tia are a colourful pair of scouse characters; they built this neat chop around one of our solid mount softail frames and by the sound of it are well chuffed with the result. Rightly so, we reckon.
Vince's new Shovel
Another nice bobber from Vince completed again in record time! The frame is in the 'rigids' section. Vince is up for undertaking custom builds; EMAIL him
Toby's XL Softail
'The best bike in the world' is how Toby feels about his completed sportster softail urban warrior, & he was kind enough to send us some shots of it. A great 'dont mess with me' bike.
Neil's Bobber
Neil is a mate of Vince's (see above & below) who came to us in September '05 with an order for a wishbone rigid frame. Barely 4 months later, here it is finished, a beautiful classic bobber.
John Ingrouille's sporty
Another quick worker, We made the rigid frame & oil tank for John in October '04. In Feb '05 he sent us this pic of the finished result. What's more, I think I remember that this was his first custom build! Good work John.
Photo
nicked out of BSH
Neil Page's rigid Dyna chop
We got an order from Black Bear towards the end of 2003 for a couple of chop frames. One of which was this, an evo dyna rigid. The Page family all have Harleys and It became clear when doing some framework for Neil's brother Mark, that Neil was the man behind this frame order. Heard no more until the finished bike was featured in BSH Aug 2005. Lookin' good Neil.
Bean's Zero Shovel
Shortly after finishing the frame for the Krazy Horse Zero sportster, (see below) Bean came and asked us for a similar frame for his shovel, but with a different gooseneck to the KH frame. Bean used a good few hotrod parts which make the bike stand out even more. Like the KH bike, its been around the show circuit and had a lot of magazine coverage.
The Krazy Horse Zero bike
The story of this bike has been published all over the place; Paul, Krazy Horse's main man had an Ironhead sportster kicking about. Inspired by the decidedly different stuff that Zero Engineering of Japan were doing, He brought over a book of their work as reference, and we built the frame. The success of the finished result is staggering. It attracts attention like a UFO over Washington! people climb over megabuck billet barges to get a closer look. There are too many clever tricks to mention here; check out : http://www.krazyhorse.co.uk/ We enjoy a good relationship with Krazy Horse and work with them often.
Smileys Evo
Smiley is Bean's (above) brother. He came to see us with a shovel swingarm frame to be raked and modified to accept an Evo engine. Here's the end result; one tough looking chop.
Vince's Panhead
A year after collecting his Evo rigid frame (see below) and 10 months after finishing the bike, Vince was ready to start another project and asked us for another, less raked frame to take a panhead he had sourced. Once again, Vince completed this neat bobber in record time. Featured in BSH 248.
This is the same bike! well some of it is. Vince blew the pan motor up and re-did the whole thing.
The Yellow Bike
We dont build bikes for the hell of it much these days, frame building keeps us too busy. But sometimes it just seems
necessary. We had 2 or 3 orders for FXR
softail frames come in at once back in spring 03, so we built an extra one while we were at it. We had a freshly rebuilt evo lump over in the corner, and the best part of an FXR primary drive and gearbox in another box somewhere. The gearbox case was damaged but repairable, so in doing this we modified it to provide offset for the 200 rear tyre- handily avoiding the usual hassles of getting more tyre into an FXR. Flame paint job by Ty at Pageant. Got it finished may 04 and immediately rode over to the super rally in Sweden where it performed well. Put a good few miles on it during 04-05 . Nice bike to ride.
Alain's Sporty Softail
Alain is a busy enterpreneur with a chain of pubs. He brought over most of his dismantled 1200 XL in June 03 in order that we build him a
softail
frame for it. Of course, we dont usually need a customers parts as we have many jigs, but chatting with Alain about his work and so on , we began to suspect that we would end up building the whole thing, which indeed proved to be the case. It was clear that this should be a tough, businesslike bike, what with his much warmed over lump, and the sportsbike running gear he brought us, so this is what we built.
Vince's Rigid Evo
Vince is an energetic up-and-coming custom builder from South London. Having made a big impression in the streetfighter world, he decided to give Harleys a go and ordered a well raked evo/ 4 speed
rigid frame in winter 2002. Another bloke who does not waste any time, He had this matt black with attitude monster done in a couple of months
Jock's Dyna softail
Jock (NCC Gloucester) came to see us 01/02 time having spoken to Porky (see below) about his twincam project, wanting to do something similar. Jock knows what he wants and doesn't mess around. With a new twincam dyna as a donor bike, we made the
Dynasoft frame and
the wheels, and Jock finished the bike in record time. Jock is a dealer for OMD products, many of which can be seen on this bike. Having won various awards and ridden some miles, Jock sold the bike last year. Its new owner entered it in the Bulldog bash custom show, and picked up the 'best Harley' award.
Black Heat
We built this in 2003 alongside Billy's bike (see below) Indeed the frame setup is very similar, but this one has a 240 rear wheel. It started with what appeared to be a good deal on a used Boz-built 98" S&S motor. We used a Zodiac 45mm offset spacer with support bearing to get enough clearance for a 240x 16 Metzler rear tyre. We made a set of solid wheels to suit. The frontend started life on a kawasaki ZRX1100 and we made the 6 over 43mm tubes for them. The black paintjob has subtle ghost flames on the tank. when we got it on the road it was clear that although powerful, the engine was not well at all. It smoked and rattled, so we took it to top fuel drag racer Chris Stebbing along with parts to replace everything inside the engine. Chris did a good job and now the engine runs perfectly.
The Billy bike
No not that one! Billy lives locally. He had a nice mid 90s springer softail. Then, in Belgium in 2002, he used it to destroy a peugeot; a very noble sacrifice! When he recovered, he bought the wreck back from the insurance co and we helped him build this chop. Its not a custom frame, we modified the remains of the original; a process whereby if you have a stock frame, you can save major bucks. Front end is 6"over with deuce sliders; we modified the stance of a sportster tank to suit. Billy entered the East Coast Harley Club 03 summer party custom show and won the coveted 'hogs bollocks' award.
Alan's Proper Chopper
Alan, parts man at Black Bear HD finished this bad black rigid chop back in the summer (02) using an evo FXR engine & trans, solidly mounted and with pan covers. Satin black paintjob features real bullet holes thru the tank!
See the bare frame on the 'rigids'
page
Softail Buell
We finished this in August 02. An abandoned project bought from an emigrating customer, using an engine from a crashed Buell S1 and various XL1200S parts, Jap 3 spoke wheels, and one of our
sportster softail
frames. It proved to us again what a real fun bike the XLST is to ride.
Tony's 'Fighter
Tonys the Suffolk Chopper Club rep. He does a lot of miles.
Quickly. He came to us with the remains of the frame (not one of ours!) from the
original incarnation of this bike which had cracked up badly thru poor design
and inadequate materials. We built him a much beefier one as seen here. Tony
reports a big improvement; You'd hope so - anything is an improvement over
having your frame almost falling in half!
Porky's Dyna Softail
Porky these days is the main bike sales guy at Black Bear HD, but he was at Krazy Horse when he had the 2nd
Dynasoft frame we made, and built this beautiful twincam custom. We also made the rear wheel and yokes for the marzocchi upsidedownies. Ty at pageant did the eye grabbing paint job. Now in the hands of a new owner, and we believe, with a new paint job.
Twincam FXR Softail.
We think this was Britain's first Twin Cam chop. Built by us in 1999 / 2000, we mated a new TC lump with a modified early FXR box using a specially machined ally adapter plate which offset the gearbox 3/4" from the engine. This allowed a 180 tyre with a 37mm belt. Mounted in one of our (well stretched)
FXR softail frames and wearing a set of our solid wheels, it has a host of one off parts. Multiple show winner, Featured in BSH no 210 ( Oct 2001) along with its new owner.
Dynaglide Softail
This was our first Dyna softail
frame built to evaluate the new design. Once everything was deemed OK, we prettied it up as seen here. Stock rake, 190 tyre on our 17" solid wheel (recently modified with a matching one on the front), Marzocchi forks in our own blind-top yokes. Second shot shows yours truly giving it some for a BSH photoshoot that never
materialized as a feature. Probably took one look and said 'we're not having that ugly bugger in our mag! A cracking bike now in the hands of its new owner Matt.
Griff's Pan
Griff came to see us shortly after we moved to Norfolk in 1998. He'd commissioned the build up of an all new 80" panhead lump from a european source and wanted to mount it in a softail frame to take a 200 rear tyre. Despite working out of the country for 6 months of the year, he got it done by spring '99. Griff has been winning prizes wherever he goes with it ever since.
Pro Street styled FXR
We built this one in spring 2002, a mild custom based on a much modified FLT frame. It exemplifies the kind of one off mods that we are always being asked to do; adapting Japanese wheels and brakes (in this case ZX10) to fit Harleys, wide slab yokes for the stock 39mm forks, lowering seat rails, widening fenders etc. Not a megabuck out and out custom, but an affordable practical bike that’s different enough from stock to get noticed.
Gordon's Outfit
'Subtle as a punch in the throat' was the description in the BSH feature back in '98. Gordon needed something to get his family to all the rallys that they attend each year, and thought a sidecar outfit would be a more unusual approach than the obvious trike solution. We made him an FXR softail frame, the yokes and oiltank. he then handed it all to the guys at Unit sidecars who did their stuff. Its that eye-searing paintjob thats the icing on the cake, though.
Softail Sportster.
Built way back in '96 in conjunction with Neil then of 'Heavy Duty' magazine, this was our first
sportster
softail frame. A 883 with a 1200 conversion built by Boz, this lively motor really complemented the fine handling of our chassis. When Neil went on holiday for a couple of weeks, he left it with us with permission to use it if we wanted. Suffice to say, we didn’t want to give it back! A real tear-ass hooligans bike.
Brian Udall's Roadrunner Sportster.
Brian got the drag racing bug a few seasons ago. When he approached us with the idea of building a custom styled bike which would be competitive in the supertwins class, we came up with this lightweight chrome - moly chassis for him to put his 88 inch 5 speed sportster motor in. We also made the alloy tail piece, oil tank, motor plates, modified the Battistinis tank, and generally set the rolling chassis up. Brians running elevens now, and looks to better this soon.
Easyriders of St Louis.
These guys build some top class equipment. A few years ago Greg, the main man, who also heads up Astech who make a range of quality billet alloy parts, ordered a few of our
FXR softail
frames. This is what they turned them into.
We got the chance to meet Greg in person in 2001 and to examine his handiwork, suffice to say, you wouldn’t find more meticulous attention to detail anywhere. Greg was full of praise for our chassis work and mentioned that he has turned down offers of $40,000 for one of these bikes!!
Easyriders of St Louis 2.
Les Harris's Black Racer Sportster.
Les has been drag racing for ages, his Black Racer was originally campaigned in a stock sportster frame and he came to see us about weight shedding via a new frame, at the same time adding a bit of rake and length and lowering a bit. Essentially a chrome moly version of the standard frame, we moved back and reinforced the swingarm pivot, added length to the top tube and raked to 35 degrees. The stock frame weighed 47 pounds, ours weighed 28 pounds. 'Goes dead straight' says Les. We thought it would…
Loco's Z1100.
Just to show that we don’t just do Harleys, here's a really radical frame we did some years ago for a Z1100 shaftie, we did a lot of shaft drive chops once upon a time and old friend Loco (an airbrush genius) made a fine job of this outrageous chop. When Loco moved to LA in the early nineties he took this with him. It proved way too much for the surprisingly conservative Americans; the cops pull him all the time, and fellow bikers treat it with suspicion!
Minnesota Fats.
We built this one in ’97 in part to verify that our FXR softail
would go together OK with a 200 rear tyre, which was as fat as you could get back then, and a 37mm rear belt drive. This required a 27mm engine offset and we wanted to discover how this would affect handling. The answer was that there is a noticeable preference for left turns over right turns! The handling was by no means disastrous though and quite adequate for this style of bike which is never going road racing anyway!
We did conclude though that all other means of obtaining fat tyre clearance (e.g.. narrow belt, offsetting gearbox from engine, longer gearbox main shaft kits, and the newly available right side drive gearboxes) should be looked into before resorting to engine offset more than 20mm.
The bike itself was a big success and attracted attention everywhere, won various trophies and was featured in BSH May ’98 along with … Jims ‘Dakota Black’
Jim Brown's Dakota Black FXR Softail.
Old mate Jim had a contract welding business on the same estate as our former premises in Waltham Abbey and would often happen by for a chat and many times helped out with a bit of work when we were quiet. When Jim saw our first
FXR softail frame fresh off the jig, he wanted one, and so he had that very one. Using many parts that Jim had lying around, a drive train pieced together bit by bit, and a lot of one off parts made by us, this is what we built for him.
Keith's XLST low-rider
Keith's in the South London NCC, and the Chopper Club guys build bikes that get ridden. So when he came to see us about providing a stretched version of our
softail sportster
frame, we knew that this would be one bay area styled bike that wound actually be ridden! Nice one Keith
Gary's Softail Shovel
Where it all started for CCD: Back in 1994 Gary treated himself to a early 80s wide glide for his birthday. At his party he came up to me and asked 'do you reckon that frame could be
converted to a
softail? We looked at a stock FXST parked nearby, then back at his shovel. Hmmm yeah, reckon so. Engine was rebuilt into an 88 incher. Bikes now been on the road 10 years, still going strong.