Total Motorcycle Community Forums

so, I now have purchased my first ride, which I am excited about but I mean, "its my first not my last" is definately going off in my head when I think about it. What I figure is that maybe while riding this one for a few years I can build up a custom chopper from parts. Buy the frame and engine and all that. How hard would this really be to do? and how much do all these parts generally run (I dont need an S&S motor and vance and hines pipes or arlen ness mirrors) is this something that could be tackled by a mechanically inclined persome with some garage space? I like the prostreet style and dont really find anything by any of the bike manufacturers very good looking, but the custom shop prices are killer

One of the guys I met at a bike show a while back told me that he took a 750v-twin motor out of shadow, shoveled it into a ls650 frame and then raked out the front, custom flamed it and had "Hardly A Davidson" sprayed across the tank.

well, I have to do some mods to the savage just to get it to fit me, it fits ok but I am a little big for it, some forward control extenders and different bars and a seat lift will help with that, and should be well under $100 for all of that I hope. then a harley muffler and K&N and carb mods will give me more power to play with, from 37ft/lbs to around 60 is a big jump.... and that should last me at least a couple years. but then I want a much longer and larger bike, wanna go at least 1600cc Vtwin, maybe a supercharger, a 2280 rear wheel, raked out front, have to be 6' just to ride the thing cause it will be LONG in the neck. dont want it to scrape the pavement though, its gonna be able to coner, despite the raked out front, well, semi raked out, but it will have lean clearance. wanna build a super sexy chopper that still loves the twistys, why not right?

You're asking a whole range of questions.....all about something thats surely crossed every riders mind (and dont call me surely)

How much are the parts and where would you get them. Cheapest way would be getting the pieces you need off old broken bikes. Probably the most fun too.

Of course you can buy everything needed to build a motorcycle from an extensive parts supplier like J & P Cycles

The next question on how to build it??? Thats a tough one. They do sell bikes-in-a-box where everything needed to build an entire motorcycle along with the instruction manual comes in the price. This is a more expensive route and a lot of riders in this forum have discouraged novice mechanics from buying the kit.

Maybe team-up with a seasoned bike builder or at least mechanic and have make it your pet project to work on when you can?

Hmmm, I remember hearing good things about the supertrapp exhaust for the savage. Reported to add an extra 10hp up at the top end, makes it a lot better for passing on the highway and stuff like that.

Custom chopper is definately possible, about 2 months ago there was an article in Canadian Biker where three guys did exactly that, custom 1-off handbuilt chopper in one of their garages, without all the special tools. They might have had to order some of the parts or something, I'm not totally sure, but it looked right impressive.

hmmm, definately a lot to think about, maybe I'll browse through the catalogs of the companies in the back of some magazines and see what kind of prices I am looking at.

theres building a bike, and building a bike from scratch... if you wanna build a chopper, then dont set your goals to high, to be honest unless you have at least $25,000 to build a custom harley and a good knowledge of welding, fabricating, I wouldnt bother, customising is another thing, but it allways starts with how much you wanna spend, and what skills you have, if you have a hammer, and a pipe wrench for a tool kit, not enough money to feed your self, then rethink the whole thing, because there is nothing worse than sitting on a project cause you havnt got the money to finish it.
if you have access too, or have your own space, plenty of spare cash, and a understanding partner who will bring you food to your garage, and generaly want to help you complete your goal, then your a lucky man.

oh and another thing , people who work on bikes get asked for help all the time, as I do, I have several projects on the go, not choppers, Ive no interest there,

the thing is, alot of the shows, show that building a HD custom is easy, just buy the parts you need and bolt it together, though personly like I said I dont have much interest in choppers, these HD Chopper kits, will take alot of the confusion of offset, wheels, transmission etc out of the equation, they dont solve all the problems and expect to pay 20K without paint, for that kind of thing.
if your gonna start a custom from a metric bike, spend your money on something that is complete and running, in a ridable bike, nothing worse than spending alot of time on something and finding out you bought a Pile of crap to start with.

Dichotomous wrote:... but then I want a much longer and larger bike, wanna go at least 1600cc Vtwin, maybe a supercharger, a 2280 rear wheel, raked out front, have to be 6' just to ride the thing cause it will be LONG in the neck. dont want it to scrape the pavement though, its gonna be able to coner, despite the raked out front, well, semi raked out, but it will have lean clearance. wanna build a super sexy chopper that still loves the twistys, why not right?

Have you ever ridden a chopper? The long raked front end you described will pretty much rule out any kind of cornering performance. Choppers are built to create a certain look. Most of the things done to achieve that look, like long wheel bases and giant rear tires, are not conducive to good (or even marginal) handling performance in the twisties. I have yet to ride a chopper that handled even half as good as a standard production motorcycle. In order to look cool, you have to give up handling and comfort. If you build a chopper, I'd recommend that you hang on to the 650 for when you need a bike that has reasonable utility.

I don't want to throw a wet blanket on your project. Just wanted to mention some of the realities of riding that kind of bike. All of those chopper shows on TV rarely mention the fact that their cool designs are almost unrideable (except in a straight line, as long as you don't have a bad back )

Actually, the stuff built on TV by the Teutels aren't really choppers in the classic sense. They are custom bikes. They have the drawbacks the previous poster stated.

Originally, choppers were regular bikes that had most of the "stuff" removed. Fenders, shocks, extra lighting. The bike was minimized. Sometimes an extended fork was added to make the bike more stable handling in a straight line. Today these type bikes are more likely to be called "bobs". You can build your existing bike into a chopper piece by piece. Clean off the unnecessary extras piece by piece. And custom parts as needed piece by piewce. Over time, your bike will be a custom chopper. You don't have to do it over a weekend. Take your time.