Tennessee Mafia

This past weekend Dave and I made a trip north with kentucky being our final destination.  I had to pick up the tins for my Panhead and Dave needed his Shadetree tattoo.  Via Kentucky was Kingsport, Tennessee.

 We stopped at Brother Johns house and was welcomed with chicken on the grill, beer in the fridge, and friends on the porch.  Paulie, and Psycho were there for a bit and we all ate like kings cause Brenda kept filling the table with food she had made.

 As the night progressed we made our way to the shop because we were so loud and had to let the kids sleep.  But the laughter and jokes were abroad.

 Frito's old triumph project

 There was a second crew that rolled in that has us hurting in the stomach from laughter, these are the culprits.

 Low-T aka Mark

 Jarrod, who is very photo genic i must say.

 Pickle and Dave

 These guys are as country as they come, but are awesome guys.  i will be heading back north soon to hang with those guys just so I can see the projects they have.  We are gonna introduce the world to what bikes the Tri-City area can build, they are bitching bikes.

 Its even kooler that they drive a Geo

Some of the morning carnage leftover, the rest made it in the trash.  Thanks Brother John and Brenda for the meal, beer, and beds to rest our heads. 

The OG's

 About 2 weeks ago I took a trip north to Youngsville to visit with the OG's, i first arrived at kevins place and snapped a few pics and drank some of his beer waiting on him.

 Kevin's Flathead

 Well we had to make a run over to Ken's shop to work Kevin's new find.  We tore the whole primary off and began fixing everything as we found neccesary to fix. 

 Ken's shop was spectacular and his wife treated us to some great food that weekend.

There will be an on going theme that will follow this post.  HOSPITALITY. Dave and I have traveled all over the place lately and everywhere we go we are met with some of the best friends and the best treatment.  Some of you would say the same for us but seriously we are just paying it back cause thats how we are treated we feel like. 

New Tins

The panhead named Iman is looking good, gonna change up a few things but this is it for the night. I have a few other tricks before she is ready to hit the road but I am trucking along. I got my new tins this past weekend and blown away with how they look. I forgot tho how much meat i took out of a set of 3.5 gallon fatbobs it will make for an interesting ride to Cali this summer.

Weekend in Kentucky

 

 

Friday Dave and Shoprag left for Kentucky to pick up Texas Scotts bike and Shoprags tins for his panhead, Im sure he will post more pics from there trip. Anyway I stole these pics from Facebook. Looks like the guys had a great time. Oysters, shotput, beer, snow and Dave got his Shadetree tattoo from Brother Joe. Wooohoooo.

 

 

 

Cracked frame

 A local guy here picked up a 1978 shovel chopper in I believe a Denver's frame for cheap. It had a blown head gasket when he got it. So he brought it to me to get it road worthly....

After pulling the head I found it needed a complete top end. I also found that the frame was cracked just behind the front motor mount.

 

 Since the motor was going to be apart anyway I took the time to weld the frame back up

 Cut about 10" out of the bottom frame rail with the cases still bolted in to hold everything in place. I did this so I could get a good slug in both ends and fix it for good.

 It all went pretty smooth and turned out good. This frame has cracked and had more then one repair before so we'll see where it breaks next.

Rollin Went Muddin'

Hard Bags

Dave picked up these sweet Panhead bags from a friend at the Chesterfield swap. he mounted his right side bag already on the Knuckle and I get the left side bag.

Congrats Pat

My brother Pat put his bike in the World of Wheels show in Chicago and won an award. It was prob for his perfect hair tho.

Paddle Party

So this weekend we shot to our good friend Russell's for his paddle party. Well just so happened that Matt was in town from Alabama. Man we had a blast, telling old stories, crushing the parties entertainment. It got so crazy that we all drank out of Matt's prosthetic leg which was cleaned before we drank. A good time was had by all and hopefully a big trip to Alabama soon.

Stubborn Handlebars

So my handlebars have always bothered me cause they are wider than the fork legs in the center, so tonight while getting my bike ready for school, Dave and I did a 30 minute chop on them and took 3 inches out of the center.

Texas Scott's Shovel

Scott and Dozer just finished up this build and I guess the motor is coming down here to get rebuilt.

People's choice

Wanted to say Thanks to Show Class for the opportunity to compete in the top 25, HUGE Thanks to everyone that voted for me, and Congratulations to the top 13. There was some VERY, VERY cool bikes in the top 25. I'm looking forward to seeing what is to come.