1970’s Style Harley-Davidson Panhead Bobber

I PURCHASED a bare frame with a plan to simply buy new parts and assemble as much of the bike by myself. I have always loved 60’s & 70’s choppers/bobbers, and I have loved the metal-flake and lacework paint jobs shot onto Low Riders, so they were always going to be the influence. 

After three to four months of picking up bits and pieces enough to the get the bike rolling, I worked out that almost everything sold over the counter or online touted as ‘bolt-on’ never bolts on and almost everything requires modification to fit properly. We all know you need to do some basic modifications, but over the years it seems the quality of manufactured items has gotten worse and worse even with some of the reputable brands. I think because they are all offshoring manufacture to low-cost centres in Asia/India, the quality just isn’t there. Since I didn’t have any serious machining equipment, I looked into purchasing a small lathe and mill to run in my shed but everything decent was out of my price range… so I decided I needed a professional.

With the frame sort-of rolling, I took it to Rusty (Rusty’s Bayside Custom Cycles) to get a Panhead motor and box fitted/aligned, and at the same time, have him modify/fix many of the parts that I had purchased, and to fabricate fender struts, brackets, seat posts, and a few other bits and pieces.

Halfway through the build it became obvious that the cheap front-end I had purchased looked way out of place and we needed to get a factory-look springer that better fitted the theme of the bike.

The softail rear wheel/hub assembly proved to be a big pain to get the drive assembly alignment correct. Given it is a skinny-tyre-frame lots of machining was done to get the alignment correct.

Holger from Zap Electrics did a bunch of wiring on the bike. He spent heaps of time trying to hide as much of the wiring as possible in the frame. I considered running a dual spark ignition but in the end decided a single looks much neater. Again this fits better with the theme of the bike.

The forward controls and brass components—grips, tank caps, mirror, choke knob, etc—all came from Speed Dealer Customs in the USA. If you haven’t seen this gear before, it’s worth checking out. It is high quality stuff; probably the only gear for the bike that wasn’t heavily modified to make work.

The tank paint by Mark at Queensland Motorcycle Paint & Panel is pretty wild. He spent hours masking, painting, masking, painting. I said to Mark that I wanted lots of metal-flake and candy colours and I love Mexican Low Riders lace work. I threw a few ideas at him and he did the rest. The photos don’t actually do the tank justice. When you get it out in the sun, all the layers/depth and all the flake are pretty impressive. Whenever I ride/stop the first thing people ask me is who painted the tank.

Back in January, Rusty and I chatted about entering it in the Veteran MC Bike & Trike Show. Initially we weren’t sure that we would get all the remaining work completed in time, but he put in a heap of hours in the week leading up to event, and at about 4:30 pm the afternoon before the show, we started the bike for the first time—first crank it fired without a problem. 

On the morning of the show, I did a couple of laps around Cleveland to make sure nothing was missed and allow it to warm up properly for a carb tune; no problems. So I rode it straight to the show and it ran flawlessly and ended up winning Best of Show. I was pretty stoked.

Late last year Rusty suggested I enter it into the Laverda show out at Cleveland. I entered it into the Custom Class because most of the bikes in the American Pre-Evo Class were restored originals. I definitely wasn’t thinking it would win anything, but to my surprise, it got first place.

I have only done 1500 km. Travelling for work and chasing after three kids has limited how much time I can ride it. I love riding it, but if I am honest, 100 km at a time is about the limit for the fuel tank. Also the rigid rear and springer front can get a little tough on the back after a while. Not sure if I am getting soft or if the roads are getting worse, definitely the latter, but maybe both… 

Photos: Rod Cole. Story: Alex Miller