I've done California three weeks in a row now. The last two have been in trucks though, looking for a rigid frame to start a new project bike. Weird that there are just zero rigids in Vegas. I thought I found one at Boulder Choppers but it turns out it was a customer's and wasn't for sale.

Then week before last I saw an ad for Safari Cycles in Long Beach. I gave them a call and asked if they had any rigid frames, the guy on the phone said "yep, we have tons of everything." I asked about prices and he said, "come find what you like and make an offer." So sweet, last weekend I grabbed a buddy and we headed to Califonia in his truck. He said he thought Long Beach was where West Coast Choppers was located. I never paid much attention the shows but thought he was in SF. We get to Safari Cycles, walk in and I ask the guy at the sales counter about their rigid frames. His response, "We don't have any rigid frames." $#!^!!!!! It wasn't a total waste, my buddy found some chrome hand controls and grips for his Road King. On the way out we did find the vacant West Coast Choppers building as well and snapped a couple of pictures.

On Tuesday I was checking out Ebay and stumbled across another rigid. This one was in Chula Vista down by San Diego and came with a chrome triple tree. It was sitting at $100. I asked the seller some questions. Turns out the frame is a Custom Chrome Pimp Daddy from 2005. I read a couple of posts online about the frames, saw complaints about them being hard to build on. But still, hard to work on beats way too expensive, so I put down 225 on it. I got outbid on Thursday and it sat at 250 right up until the last minute of the auction. I put 480 as my final bid and won it for 440, sweet.

I couldn't find anyone to go with me this weekend, so I drove solo to Chula Vista. I got to the guy's house around 11am, he had the frame ready to go and showed my some other items he was looking to sell. I got a set of spoke wheels with rotors in fair shape for 100 bucks and chrome forward controls for 130. Since he couldn't find the MSO for the frame he knocked a hundred off for it, since it's going to be a pain to get titled when I finally get it built. We got everything loaded into my truck and I was heading home before noon.

Now being a complete pose(u)r it just wouldn't have been proper not to stop at every dealership for t-shirt shopping. I hit three dealerships on the way back; Sweetwater, Biggs and Quaid. Score.

I got home around 7pm pulled the frame out of the truck, tossed the t-shirts in the wash and watched some tv.

This morning I got up and decided to put the controls on the frame and saw why there were complaints. The controls are made by Custom Chrome as well, but they didn't quite fit. The bolt for the brake pivot was butting up against the mounting bracket. It took about 20 minutes of filing to get things to fit. So with the bit of filing and bolting on of the controls the project has officially started. Now I just need for looking for discarded engine parts. I'm thinking shovel, but my mechanic buddy is saying 93 or later evo. I figure I'll just go with cheapest.

Here's a few pics of the frame, WCC and the tshirts.

 

Since you're just starting you might want to check into the DMV laws to see how many hoops you'll need to jump through to get the beast registered. Looks like a fun project.

 

Good luck with registering your new bike without a MSO. From my experience in SOCAL you won't be able to do it.

 

Sweet Deal......What degree rake is it? 34?

 

Do not do anything to that frame till you get the paperwork sorted out...it is a big enough pain to get one titled with an MSO.

 

It'll be titled in NV, OK or AR. But, chatting with the mechanic, he's been through this before, the fix is to go back to Custom Chrome with the VIN, have them resend the MSO to the original purchaser (the ebay seller) then get it from him.

Rake is 33 with 2" stretch. Can go with stock or +2. Right now I'm leaning to +2, but will see what's available at the Long Beach swap meet next month or in March.

There is on place online that is still selling the frames as a rolling chassis found there website while I was researching the frame:

http://www.choppersurplus.com/bikeki...pimpdaddy.html

 

So the trail should work out with the stretch and +2......... Kool, I can picture that........

 

i'm anxious to see the build progress.

 

Sounds like you scored! A shovel motor in that frame would be killer!!

 

get a recipt for some steel stock,say you built the frame..for all they know your a machinist and a welder..going to be a nice bike..or get a 69 back motor with a title..then the frame is irrelevant