Its been annouced

Gangster Choppers took the Editors Choice award in Charlotte with Preacher's Daughter, last weekend. Today Head Gangster and Johnny A. List is leaving for the 4th stop on the Easyriders Tour, Louisville, KY.

The new Gangster Van is loaded with official gear, tee's, caps, parts and swag. If you're around Louisville go and check the Easyriders Show Tour out! 2009 is a blistering hot year so far and the show bikes are top notch.

Dude, that was a good WIN

I see that you won editors choice in charlotte with Preacher's Daughter where is the next show?

Plasma Cutter Saves The Day ......

We've had a Plasma cutter for atleast 10 years, Plasma cutters used to be an exotic tool in shops now its pretty much run of the mill stuff. For motorycle fabrication I rarely use it, but when you do need one nothing will take its place. Cuts like a knife through steel, ours can handle up to 3/4" thick material.

Custom Fabrication

Custom spring/axle perches to fit the odd 2" wide rear springs had to be made.

California...........

These pictures were sent to me thanks to an 'ol friend Joe Coghlin. Joe and Lynn used to live in RICHMOND and we would up and ride with nowhere to go. Stopping in at new places just to see what was up was a pretty regular thing. We ran thru toll booths, running up the interstate at 110 mph with no good reason other than we could. Joe commonly refers to those rides as the "white knuckle" rides, and I rekon they where. Seems not so long ago people had a whole lot less things to do and Midnight was the right time for a ride.

PROOF

Pictures are proof, so here are a couple. I continued on the '59's suspension modifications today, workng on the small detail stuff. The rear "c" notch was cut and fully welded, pinion angle set, rear shock mounts fabricated, fender/tire clearence varified and a bunch more on other stuff. Total hours in job so far is 28hrs.

If there is still doubt.......

If there is still doubt that I will cut anything up ... today I put Felony Maker on the lift to investigate a transmission leak. The leak was a simple fix turns out it was just the pan gasket and changing the filter and fluid was past due anyway.

While it was in the air I got to looking around at the suspension and wishing I had the time to go ahead with my plans to lower the ride height. Thinking and thinking, I finally convinced myself to just do it, I have waited long enough and if I didn't rip into it who knows maybe the winter would slide past and spring roll around and the '59 would still be sitting up at factory ride height.

So here's the picture proof. Its all apart, cut up, whatever you want to call it. We'll see how long it takes to put it all back together. I am not buying anything, instead I am making all the brackets, pins, bolts, cutting the factory pitman arm and dropping it. Basically its a low budget done "in house" type of job.

Next bike?

I'm having a tough time trying to decide the next bike to build for "myself". Its a toss up between an old basket case '49 Pan or do up another '87 FXR. I have pretty much equal pieces for each project, I am short a frame for the '49...basically 'cause I want a Harley Davidson frame and not one of mine or a reproduction. The FXR is pretty much all there except it just costs more to build with the primary and electric starter and brakes and stuff that the old '49 just won't hit you up for.

The 1st Serious Modification...

The first modification I made to the '59 was the dash treatment. Somwhere along the way the center of the dash got hacked up for a 2"x7" radio. I think there is two ways to build an old car, either keep it original or somewhat period perfect with the modern adminities kept out of sight. For Felony Maker's dash I wanted the later "period perfect" approch. I have always liked anything frenched, like headlights, taillights, antenas and gauges. My search for Stewart Warner gauges began, I found an entire kit from a "street rodder" that had decided to sell them for a fraction of the original price. Armed now with gauges in hand, the cutting and design work started. All the fabrication was performed with metal and continuos welding tied my new pieces with the '59 dash. All of the work was done in my spare time and outside too! My shop was completely full of bikes and projects at the time and it was cold outside.

Felony Maker - ripping and roaring

Anybody thats been around Felony Maker knows its got Quad Fish Lips protruding from underneath the rear bumper. But, unless you've heard it run or had an oppertunity to ride in it, you never realize that there are no mufflers disturbing the exhaust flow. Yep, just like my choppers Felony Maker runs straight pipes! Cruising on the interstates revving about 3 grand or so gets pretty loud.

Loud pipes saves Lives!

Sneek Peek

With only three days before the 2009 Easyriders Centerfold Tour kicks off, I thought a sneek peek at the Autograph Card would interesting for the Blog. As always enjoy.