Tinker’s Toy
Story by Tinker, Photos by JM
The bike you see before you was built to be ridden. Yeah, so it’s a rigid. You got a problem with that? Tinker doesn’t. In fact, he and his scooter have seen many, many miles of asphalt pass under them. We’ll let him tell the story of how his panhead came to be. -MetalMan
Years ago, I lost a shovelhead to a former partner. He apparently needed it more than I did. He took off with it while I was overseas with the Marines in Beirut in '82. The next time I discovered his whereabouts, he was in the hospital getting brain surgery for a series of aneurysms. To this day, I haven't caught up with him yet, but that's a different story,. However it sets the stage for the story of how I ended up with my pan.
Some time later, I married a woman with two kids, so I hung up the leathers for about ten years. I started building the panhead when the kids got out of their teens. I bought a mainshaft for a late shovel tranny at a swap meet for a buck, it determined the tranny and closed some decisions on the motor as well. I ended up buying a set of Delkron cases. I also found a rusty set of flywheels and connecting rods from an 80-inch shovel, which I rebuilt with new shafts and bearings. Up top, I added RevTech big bore cylinders with S&S cast pistons under STD heads, and put a cone cover over an Andrews B grind cam. The scooter had a Showa wide glide fork with dual discs and a “twenty-one,” a Paughco swingarm frame, ‘58 style square swing arm, and an FL hinged fender. Bars we a set of low apes, while the tanks were early ‘70s 5-gallon fatbobs with an early cateye-style dash up top.
During that year, I welded up the tanks something like six or seven times. I also welded up the rear fender because the hinge died. At one point I went to put on a set of rubber mount tanks, and I discovered that the frame was cracked right at the top motor mount. I stripped it donw, and sent the frame back to Paughco, but couldn't wait a couple months to ride. Thus, I put everything in a rigid frame I had built as an experiment. I learned a lot about frame building in the next six months. The Paughco frame was under warranty, so when I got it back I sold it.
Not long afterwards, the engine dropped a wristpin clip, and another rebuild was needed. Repairs required that the cylinders be taken out to a .050-inch oversize, along with a rebuild of the bottom end. At the same time, I added a new oil pump and a “C” grind Andrews cam, forged pistons and I machined the cylinders down so I had exactly 60 thousandths between pistons and heads. That motor ran great...as long as the octane diet was above 100. I rode her out to my sister's place in Colorado, spending about seventy five bucks in octane booster along the way, and I still ended up back home with a galled rear piston. The next over bore took it out to sixty-over, and I went back to cast pistons with stroker plates which put compression back to about 9.5:1. This allowed the motor to run on pump premium again. I sold the trans I built and bought a new one, which is all Andrews. I rebuilt it twice to get the problems built into it out. I also welded up plates in a stock maggie wheel on the rear to keep the chain oil off the brake rotor.
I work about thirty miles from home so the panhead gets about sixty miles a day rain or shine. It adds up to some 15 to 20 thousand miles a year. The miles mean lots of parts wear out and fall off, I try to replace broken things with things which won't break, however, Murphy rode a Harley. I just blew my fifth advance unit, so I ended up putting in a Morris Magneto with the "auto-advance" setup. So far so good. It starts more reliably and easier than ever. Oh, and right now we’re running a stock FL cam.
At present, she's pushing about 90 inches, and runs my own built frame out of thin wall 4130 chrome moly. (Note that tho’ this material light and strong, but it’s prone to stress cracks if it's on the road all the time.) It’s got a Paughco tank, wide glide front end with a dual disk 21-inch wheel. She weighs in at at about 420 pounds, depending on how full she is.
Next change? A new oil tank. The Moon tank on it right now has been welded up four times. I recently latched on to a surplus 150 psi spun aluminum tank. I think it's heavy enough wall to take the vibration without cracking. I hope so anyway! Fortunately I own a machine and welding shop. I collected tools and equipment throughout my 20 years in the Corps so when I was forced to retire due to medical reasons, I used my last paychecks to buy the best welder I could find. I run a one-man shop, and I prefer to build rather than buy. Hopefully I'll turn a profit this year. So far, I've got four custom frames on the road for my customers, and no complaints yet.
The frame the pan sits in currently is about two inches shorter than stock in the rear. It’s stretched five in the front down tubes and about an inch in the seat post tube. I runs 34 degrees of rake, and with 3 1/2-inches extra length on the wide glide she sits level with about three inches of ground clearance.
With the mag, the wiring harness consists of the regulator which is wired to the lights and a wire to the brake light switch. When she starts, the lights come on. To turn on the high beam, I installed a micro switch in the handlebars which operates a starter relay in the headlight shell. High beam consists of both beams on, with the low beam wired direct. This is the KISS principal applied to wiring, because if it can burn up it usually does.
She might get a paint job this yearmy bro’ has threatened me with onebut I may be able to elude him for another year. The problem with paint is that if it looks nice it's sure to get messed up. Flat black and old faded and scratched OEM seems to last forever without a flaw.
Funny how that works.
Semper Fi,
"the tinker"
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