The Shovelhead Chop Build – In Prep for Born Free V

I mentioned a few posts back that I scored a shovelhead roller earlier in the year and am building a bike before Born Free 5. It’s a cone motor sitting in a Paughco frame that had some accessories I wanted to run anyway like the horseshoe oil tank and open primary, which is a modest but angry 1″. A few owners back the swinger frame was hardtailed and deraked by Hans, a local MPLS bro.

Here she sits when I brought her home. The derake is pretty pronounce.

Through time bikes will take a beating from ride to ride and owner to owner… and the frame looks like mangled Swiss cheese today with holes drilled everywhere and bent rear legs. To get my geometry I’m going to rake it from a tight 26 degrees to 28, clean up the metal work and throw cast repop axle plates in the back with the help of Jordan at Union Speed and Style.

Shovelhead Springer Chopper Derake — Here it sits at 26 degrees in mock-up. It’ll be kicked out a bit shortly with the rake, but if it starts to drop too low I’ll be stretching those legs.

From here I should be sitting pretty solid in stance with the original 45 springer up front… despite the fact that it’s tempting to throw a slight stretch on it, which may happen with time. Chop it all, nothing’s sacred. I’ll be documenting the build along the way.