My Main Ride



Started
off on a Sporty 28 years ago, I think that makes that motor a
vintage Evolution. Crazy huh? Back then the Evolution Sporty was only 1 year old and had just taken over from the Iron head sporty. 1986 the first Sporty Evo's appear and 1985 for the first big twin Evo's..

I had gone to Harley School to become a tech and I know it was a long time ago because we worked on Panheads, Iron Sporties, the 66-69' Pan-Shovel and the Shovelhead. There wasn't one Evo in class yet lol.

You know your old when you know what points are or a Magneto (no not an X-men) is or if ya ever hand tuned your linkert or S&S carb before.

Anyway, I finally gave in to comfort and got me a 2006 FLHRCI you see here, brand new which I just paid off actually. She's my main squeeze now. Our biggest ride together so far was the 1100 miles from Phoenix, AZ to Euless, TX and boy was that an adventure, she and I both got battle scars from that one. It's not bad enough that illegal aliens do not respect the immigration laws but they also do not hold driving laws in high regard as well. Me and "baby" got rear-ended on the way to TX. Almost killed me, and she got a banged up skirt.But I hung onto her and she never fell over, the cop and fire fighters right there when it happened couldn't believe it. Anyway enough of my adventures.

Thanks to Sierra Vista H-D for patching me up and getting me on the road so quick so I could get home and to Adam's H-D in TX for patching up baby to better than new condition. And to Bedford Back & Neck for kinda patching me up.

I still have a soft spot for that first Sporty though and still own it as well and that's why this page exists. Call it a second chance on life for an old EVO engine. She deserves it.

Friday, July 31, 2015

Pipe Dream

Hey folks!  I was scroungin around on the net lookin for some ideas for the bobber (better to do searches and see if someone else tried an idea I had already rather than me doing it from scratch), turns out someone has tried this already and its a pretty slick setup however, I would change a few things just because.

See what I'm getting at?

Ain't it cool? Your lookin and thinking WTF has he been drinkin? I'm sober and your looking at a dual FL type exhaust set-up for a Sporty. 

I'm thinking this set-up would be kick-ass on the Bobber don't you?  I mean of course I'd put my own stamp on the whole thing but I'd fab it pretty much the same way, since its been done no need for me to scratch my head about it right?

I would be presented with slightly different set of issues than this dude had though. I'd have to fit em to the rigid frame set-up. Also, I'm thinking old style fish tails or just straight shootin, no baffles, drag pipes. 

I'm already going to hook up the FLHRCI with the Cobra Fi2000 active tuner and might do the same for the sporty with a similar tuner for non-EFI. This tuner is the cat's ass, it works real time as you ride based on your power band and driving habits and takes into account all types of accessories available. No more guessing or hunting for tune maps.

Anyhow, the tuner will dial up the right performance for the Bobber with what-ever pipes, air cleaner, carb and Engine build I decide to do be it a big bore or 110" S&S Stroker engine it will smooth it out while I ride the beast.

These pipes are pretty simplistic set-up and I can probably get away using most of a stock head pipe set of drags as the base for them. I don't want the stock factory Sporty cross over. 
 
 This is the left side of the bike on a swing arm set-up and ya can see it comes across just behind the primary.

Should be pretty similar for a rigid frame as well. Actually on a rigid I'll gain room back there with a round oil bag and relocated battery box.

I could use those new  pipe building kits instead of bending my own, we'll see I may think that will look too rough or maybe not. Then I'll just get the works triple plated after I get done tweaking and grinding the whole set-up to make it nice.

I could pop a pair of them old style Flathead pipes on  the bike and rework those to fit. I think they are available as aftermarket.

The important thing is to make sure they are solid, the instal may need rubber grommets for vibration isolation. Brackets will need to be sturdy and properly isolated. And I'll have to make sure that both pipes are parallel to each other on both sides of the bike. And most importantly, make sure all clearances are observed and accurate so nothing rubs around the bike.

Here's a pic of the dude right side config. This is the only thing I don't like about this guys set up, the cross over is ugly. IMO.

Well there we have it lemme know what y'all think and toss me any ideas which I can ignore as usual, err I mean take into consideration.

Keep the rubber side down.





Saturday, July 25, 2015

WTF? Florida and these stinkin sink holes.

I can't wait for the Mouse, Minki and I to finally move to FL on a permanent basis but one thing has scratchin my chin a lot. Its these darn sink holes FL is cursed by. We're not talking a small 6" in diameter 4" deep hole, we're talking hide a truck big. Take a look.The easiest way to hide in FL

This guy has been there as long as my dad was and never had an issue and all of a sudden bam the ground opens up. Makes me wanna take up drinkin again.

Friday, July 17, 2015

Ouch!

Hey peeps. I just wanted to warn everyone about the sun out there this summer. Its crazy hot and the UV's are like microwaves. I went out for a short putt to Strokers Dallas​ yesterday and got cooked because I forgot to put on the sun screen like mama told me ta. So now my nose is weeping liquid and my arms look like two ripe tomato's up to the elbow. I gotta stop being so stupid and you guys should be careful too, none of us wants to promote skin cancer right? So don't be absent minded like me and wear your sun screen if your playing in the sun. *cheers*

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Strokers Dallas



Well bro's and sis's I got my ass out of the cave today. I jumped on "Baby" and we took a scenic ride out to one of TX Bikers most famous waterin holes, Stroker's Dallas. Rick Fairless proprietor, however, I didn't have the pleasure of meeting him or his family but Teresa the Bar tender took awesome care of us bar flies. She kept me watered and fed me the Tom Landry (one of their specialty sandwiches) which I gotta admit was pretty tasty and went well with beer.

After I guzzled a few ice cold ones I walked around outside of the bar and looked at the buildings, this guy has some set up lemme tell ya. I always wanted my own biker bar with a courtyard for bike parking only and the best part is that Rick also has a tattoo joint on premises, a parts shop, mechanics shop and a swag and Victory Motorcycle dealership all on site.








Took me a few hours to take it all in but well worth the ride. I did get my old ass sun burnt again, Mama told me to put on sun lotion but this senile old fucker forgot so I'm sporting a farmers tan right now. I bought some swag while I was there as well got one of Rick's signature hippie tie die shirts and a cool American flag bandana.



Rick's scoots are far fuckin out lemme tell ya the man or whom ever builds his bikes is pretty frikin awesome, very reminiscent of another great builder, the late Indian Larry from the Bronx. The paint jobs are just plain crazy and while all his bikes are awesome I have a couple of favorites (I'm not really into the low stretched Arlen Ness look so much and more into Larry's style of street eatin chopper and Rick has a couple of those that are just as crazy as the low long ones.







My Favorite is the Pan-Shovel above.

The parts store has all my favs, Custom Chrome, Drag specialties, S&S and more, so I know where I'll be shoppin when I get my allowance from mama.

Anyways they say pictures are worth a lot more than a rambling old Biker fool so here ya go. Enjoy.





Friday, July 10, 2015

The new Toy


Well while I'm trying to sort the garage out and pack boxes for the eventual move to FL, the Mouse (Susie) and I traded her 2006 Ford Mustang in on a new SUV believe it or not.  Never thought you would catch my old biker ass in a yuppie mobile but here I am, and imma likin it.

Kinda resembles a pregnant roller skate but a bit cooler. It's Tuxedo Black outside with a beige leather interior. Has SYNC, Sirius Satellite radio, FORD my touch, and a decent sound system. Digital dash with steering wheel control for voice commands, blue tooth, phone and the dash computer, cruise control, driver/passenger independent A/C,  Electronic leather bucket seats with all kinds of positions and heated if desired as well, middle row seats with center console and of course the cargo area in rear, middle row are fold down flat, as is the passenger seat.

Oh and this puppy has a back-up camera and parking assist but I prefer to swivel my bean on my neck and look anyways, All rear windows are tinted black, and it has some sweet low profile rubber and mag spoke chrome wheels. Big chrome grill. Key-less entry. Rear wiper. Auto or not headlights which is cool cuz I like them off when it's a bright sunny day instead of running on all the time.

Oh and its hot spot capable for internet and has hook-up for USB, and memory card and Mp3 interface.

In fact this thing has so many toys in it for me I'm beside myself HAHAR. Mouse on the other hand just likes to drive it and doesn't care about anything except the hands free phone, tilt steering, and the seat controls LOL.

Pretty cool though after sifting through the owners manual and reading a lot I figured out how to pair up our phones so they can be in your pocket or purse or what-ever and as soon as you get close enough to the vehicle they pair up automatically and are ready to use hands free. And for this senile old guy I like the key-less entry, no more lockin the car keys in the vehicle.

Anyways, its our first step in down sizing for our retirement. I still have the 2005 Mustang with 64k miles on it. It needs some work but that will be done soon and then I'm going to sell her too. That will leave the bobber to be, the SUV and "BBBaby" my 2006 FLHRCI.

Here's a photo of the new addition, 2012 FORD Edge SEL. Oh we actually bought this for Minki and our trips with him in the car.


Thursday, July 9, 2015

 A little personal nostalgia, 1993 in a very cold Alberta Canada. 12 bikers gathered to learn the secrets from the masters. What a party.

Monday, July 6, 2015

What's the damage?

Well right now I'm trying to decide whether I should wait to build the engine in my better equipped shop in FL or begin here after I clean out the garage. In it's current state it's impossible to even set up a work bench but I have been plugging away at cleaning it up over the last few months and its looking much better but still has a long way to go.

What I have been doing is, some window shopping. I have an idea what needs to be done to the engine to get her all tightened up and purring nice but I have to price all this out carefully. I'm on a tight budget and will have to make the pennies stretch.

I always get a bit angry when I see how tight the wife and I are now on one income (still waiting for my SSD#). Take our medical for example, we have a $3000 deductible every year that has to be met before we can get a fair shake in buying our meds. WTF is the point in having coverage? Tell me. Anyways, we're doing what we can to survive, Mama is working full time still God bless her heart, she should be retired. I don't blame anyone for my financial situation as far as my retirement goes, I wasn't always a genius and I didn't plan real well for my future. First off I never thought that this Olympian body of mine would give out once I hit 50, but it has. 33 years of mostly hard labor employment (I finally smartened up and went back to school in my late 40's to get a degree) a few years working in an office environment as a Senior Technical Illustrator but it took it's toll on me.

One example I remember is when I worked at Slater Steel Industries, started in 1979 after working 5 years full-time as a busboy and finally bartender in a restaurant at a horse track (I was 14 when I started my first full-time job). Well working in a Steel Mill was something I never imagined but I have to admit I thought it was cool. Even though safety was still very archaic in the plant. We didn't have a lot of safety protocols in place and safety in the work place was just becoming a small issue with the government at the time, so companies got away with less stringent protocols. One thing that always scared the shit out of me although I never said anything at the time was "cleaning out the jack holes" under the furnaces. We had 3 huge electrode furnaces, I forget how many ton of molten steel they held each but the electrodes resembled an arc welders electrode only about 1.5 foot in diameter and about 30' long there were three placed through the roof of each furnace which "Arced" and melted the steel by electricity. Sounded like a huge ass thunder storm only feet from where I worked. Anyhow, once every 6 months or so we would have a plant shutdown, where we would stop our regular work and do clean up and repair of equipment around the plant. One job was to clean out the furnace jack holes which are exactly what they sound like, The furnace had basically a big hinge on one side and two jack posts that went into the ground 50' or 60' feet on the other side. The jack legs would be in the holes and when they needed to pour off a heat ( a load of molten steel), the furnace would tilt towards a pit where a ladle (in a pit) held by an over head crane would catch the molten steel as it was poured off. There were huge ratchets that would click and hold the furnace up  as the steel was poured off and as the molten level got lower in the furnace, the furnace would jack up higher to pour the last of the steel out. Then the ratchets would release or reverse and the furnace would lower level again and begin the process over.

Well eventually those Jack holes would become jammed and clogged with scrap metal that the crane dropped in there while filling the furnace and on shut down we had to go down there and empty this scrap to the bottom of the jack hole.  The jack hole had no more than about 1' of room around my shoulders when I was down in the hole, we had to climb down a ladder that was then removed when we were in the hole. The hole was hot well over 100 degrees. a guy up top would lover a bucket on a rope with a brick laying trowel and I would use the trowel, crouched down to fill the bucket then tug on the rope to have the guy up top empty it and lower it again. you would spend several hours down there and then be spelled for 1/2 hour and do it again until the hole was cleaned out and you hit concrete on the bottom. Dirty hard work, your back and knees should knew it. Anyways that's how I paid the bills.

I also did crap like work for a demolition company and I gutted the tallest building in my city, the Pigott Building, took every floor out to the outside walls right up to the penthouse. Swinging a sledge hammer all day and poured rubble down a chute with a wheelbarrow. I dug holes laying all the runway lights at a large airport the holes had to be dug by hand because of UG utilities all over the place. I was a bouncer for 4 years in an old hotel called the Collins. I drove a cab in a town full of drunks. I did about half a dozen other jobs as well from installing aluminum siding on houses to building fire trucks. Point is, it does take a toll on you but someone has to do that type of work and fill the job.

Now I'm 55, I have a list of things going wrong that is half as long as my arm lol but I can still walk, talk, sit and move my fingers an toes only I can't do it for 8 hours a day anymore and employers don't hire people that can only work part time for full-time work and especially with a lot of special needs that need to be considered. So here I am disabled (I hate the word but you have to be able to physically work 8 hours And not part-time but full-time to not be classified disabled).

I've had my run of bad luck in cars too, I've been rear ended 4 times in a car and the last time I was hit in the ass by a dumb illegal alien broad while riding my Harley. Unbelievable! Anyway all those bumps have fubared my back permanently not to mention almost killed me a couple of times. The bike accident was worse because I managed to hang onto the bike and not fall over as she plowed into me from a skid at about 40 miles per hour. The cop and firefighters on the scene (they were putting out a bush fire on scene) couldn't believe I didn't lose the bike either. But I paid the price, jerked my back out again and popped both arms out and back into the shoulder sockets, that has left me with nerve damage all over my back. And it gets worse every year as I age.

OK, OK enough whining about what ails me there is more but enough is enough. Point is, the wife and I do not live high on the hog we are lower middle class folks just struggling along like the rest of America thanks to Obama.

Well back to the Bobber project. Oh by the way you'll notice that this blog now has its own domain name. this should make it much easier if your so inclined to pass this sometimes soap opera on to friends so they can be amused also? 

There a fairly new web site out called Pinterest, I am thinking its pretty cool because it allows you to make groups of things you like and when your browsing the web such as shopping for bike part deals etc., and you pin these to that site in your little groups. This allows you to kinda keep projects organized but also to share them with others etc. I use it to make little groups of things I need to get my grubby hands on and things that are interesting to me. Pretty cool and you should check it out.

Well in Pinterest, I have a bobber group where I drop links and pix of stuff I need to finish this bobber project. Makes it handy to find all the stuff under one group. You can follow me as William Buchen and share pins. So that's what I have been doing lately is trying to amass some information and links to parts I will need for the project, it also lets me compare prices by saving the pins from different stores in the same group and deleting the more expensive ones. Kinda like a virtual swap meet, pretty cool stuff.

When I get enough nickels saved I will slowly buy the more pressing parts needed and get on with the project. Until then I'll try to keep yas amused with tales of my youth in the Biker world and such.
So keep coming back, subscribe and pass it on to your bros and sis's.  Http://www.thebobberproject.com


Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Update 07/01/2015

Well I'm getting boxes filled here in anticipation of our move to FL. I'm faced with a decision however, do I keep the bile parts out and perhaps begin working on the Bobber or re-box all the engine parts in smaller more manageable chunks to transport to FL and work on it there instead?

I kind of like the idea of waiting until we get to FL because once I get going on the engine, I'll want to quickly see it's rebuild through. I have that rear rod that needs to be re-bushed Because its several thou over in spec. Have to decide whether I'll just go ahead and get some S&S fly wheels and rods maybe in a 100" stroker kit. Or just go with the stock factory rods and wheels and concentrate on the over-all Bobber build? Decisions, decisions.

The wife and I did manage to get that Storage unit for a great deal and its the best thing I ever did. Typical storage units cost upwards $150/month in a size capable of storing the contents of a 2000 sq. ft. home but through these folks I got it for $85 a month and it will be paid off in a year unless I pay it off sooner, then I own the container. I'm already considering making either a guest house or massive shop out of it by adding maybe another 40'and possibly a 20' or two, ah well just fantasies for now, we'll see.


Pretty cool what some people do with these things though, you can weld a bunch together, cut in door ways and windows, drywall the inside and install electricity, propane or solar. Some people have made gorgeous homes out of them and some have made shops or studios out of them. Mine came with some ocean grade plywood flooring inside that looks like its oil impregnated, so its durable and moisture/rot resistant. Heavy duty steel door with lock box makes it secure and safe.

Anyways, back to the bike. I'm still trying to organize the garage here in TX. We moved here in a rush so things were not packed quite like they should have been and I would need to repack most everything we brought plus everything we've acquired while living here in TX these last 4 years. All these dilemmas. If I can get some semblance of order I might have a spot to assemble a work bench and proceed to building the motor, if not, it'll have to wait til we hit FL.

Keep in tune and I'll keep ya informed. *cheers*