Brent Herridge
Active Member
I had a shop replace the clutch and rebuild the tranny last summer, then I changed the final belt drive and the shocks and finally got the rear wheel straight after that. I blew a fork seal on the trip to BBBBQ last fall and I've just been riding it like that ever since.
I got the rebuild kit from Curtis and watched Marky Marc's video while it was still there. But it looked like a pretty tough job.......so I put it off all this time. I finally admitted I was a wuss and found a new shop (Southern Metal Choppers in Austin).
I took it in last week and picked her up yesterday. Things started great because they let me get in line 2 weeks earlier and then bring it in when they were ready to work on it. Then I get the call...........turned out the fork tubes were worn. I saw the old tubes and sure enough you could feel the visibly worn areas right where the top of the fork legs go. So they had to find new fork tubes. Forking by Frank did the custom tubes I had before, but they apparently don't need the work anymore, so they found tubes elsewhere. Turns out they're 16" over. Remember we speculated they were 14" ? Shop says they measured and the bike still has the same stance, so I guess that's what it is.
On the ride home, and even in the parking lot, the front end is MUCH tighter. Unfortunately the front wheel was bouncing / hopping like crazy. I came home and added 1 oz of EasyBeads, and a quick test ride did not show a lot of improvement. But familiar things like backing out over the garage step, and lifting the front end off the ground showed how badly I needed this done. Before the entire front end would drop what looked like a full inch when lifting it. There was LOTS of movement all over the front end before and none of that's happening now.
So the shop appears to have done their job. It was a weird vibe though. You'd think anybody with a chopper could be a Platinum level customer with the amount of work they could send to a shop. But I got the distinct impression they couldn't wait for me to leave and never come back. I thought I was polite the whole time, but I did question the 16" over measurement. I also discussed the repairs I had done, so maybe that's the turn off ? Hard to tell.........
Now I plan to finally ride the Twisted Sisters. It's about 3 hrs from home, so you need the long days of summer to make it a day trip. I'll post results when I do.
Any recommendations on the hopping front wheel ? Is that a natural consequence of putting 16" over on a bike designed for 12" over ?
I got the rebuild kit from Curtis and watched Marky Marc's video while it was still there. But it looked like a pretty tough job.......so I put it off all this time. I finally admitted I was a wuss and found a new shop (Southern Metal Choppers in Austin).
I took it in last week and picked her up yesterday. Things started great because they let me get in line 2 weeks earlier and then bring it in when they were ready to work on it. Then I get the call...........turned out the fork tubes were worn. I saw the old tubes and sure enough you could feel the visibly worn areas right where the top of the fork legs go. So they had to find new fork tubes. Forking by Frank did the custom tubes I had before, but they apparently don't need the work anymore, so they found tubes elsewhere. Turns out they're 16" over. Remember we speculated they were 14" ? Shop says they measured and the bike still has the same stance, so I guess that's what it is.
On the ride home, and even in the parking lot, the front end is MUCH tighter. Unfortunately the front wheel was bouncing / hopping like crazy. I came home and added 1 oz of EasyBeads, and a quick test ride did not show a lot of improvement. But familiar things like backing out over the garage step, and lifting the front end off the ground showed how badly I needed this done. Before the entire front end would drop what looked like a full inch when lifting it. There was LOTS of movement all over the front end before and none of that's happening now.
So the shop appears to have done their job. It was a weird vibe though. You'd think anybody with a chopper could be a Platinum level customer with the amount of work they could send to a shop. But I got the distinct impression they couldn't wait for me to leave and never come back. I thought I was polite the whole time, but I did question the 16" over measurement. I also discussed the repairs I had done, so maybe that's the turn off ? Hard to tell.........
Now I plan to finally ride the Twisted Sisters. It's about 3 hrs from home, so you need the long days of summer to make it a day trip. I'll post results when I do.
Any recommendations on the hopping front wheel ? Is that a natural consequence of putting 16" over on a bike designed for 12" over ?
