When we last left off, had my wheels off and ready to powdercoat and my tank needed to get the Frisco treatment. First stop: the land of 40oz, midgets and jackassery - Choppahead (oh, they build some pretty sweet bikes too). The CH dudes got some new digs, so I took the camera out for a few shots. Lots of cool builds going on, I’ll post more of those pics another time - but hit the read more link below for a few shots.

Dropped off the wheels and hung around the shop for a bit to shoot the shit with Jay. Those guys have a ton of cool shit going on - can’t wait to see all the bikes finished up. After that it was time to bust out and head over to see Steve at Troy Fab.

So seriously…. cleanest shop ever? Place was immaculate and full of all the toys that make a gearhead drool… but back to the task at hand. I had mentioned to Steve that I wanted to lower the tunnel on my Sporty tank and he responded with “Never done that before, come down, we’ll figure it out together.” Hell yes - count me in. The driving force behind the tunnel change was less about aesthetics and more about the extra drops of gas I could get in the tank. They’ll come in handy on my 90 mile round trip commute to work. Lovely… enough talk, let’s get it done…

Unmolested

Grind, grind, chop chop.

Tunnel gone - buttery goodness inside.

Zip, zoom, weeee!

Putting things back together is always harder than taking them apart.

A number of hours later she’s ready for a pressure test. Found a few holes and fixed ‘em up right quick. For the record - I wasn’t just a camera jockey on this one. No doubt - Steve did the bulk of the work and all the heavy thinking but I did get in there and do some welding of my own. It’s pretty easy to tell which welds are mine (the ugly beads), but they held up to the pressure test, so that’s good by me. Some Evercoat will fix the ugly part.

Solid day of progress and once again, I learned a lot. Steve is a real good teacher - super patient even in the face of my sub-par welding skills. Many thanks to him, make sure to check out his site and support his biz: Troy Fabrication. Steve is a wiz on the mill and lathe, so make sure to drop him a line if you need anything like that.

Really digging how the tank sits and works with the bars. Got the pipes from Hatch - temporary until I have some time to use the Biltwell kit and make my own - these fit nicely for now. Have to figure out a new air cleaner setup - I was going to use the S&S teardrop that came with the bike, but there’s not enough clearance for it with the pipes. That’s probably for the best anyway, the teardrop was a bit honking for this bike anyway.

Willy approves