Had my pan for a while and wanted to get rid of the pan so I totally stripped it down to nothing and knocked all the bondo off... Looks pretty ugly so gonna have it sand blasted......


After sand blast I'm going to cut the neck but I just want to rake it with no stretch, what is the maximum rake would I be able to run and how many " over would it get me? Just need some Ideas

 

Before the tear down

 

Please don't molest that beautiful wishbone...buy an aftermarket frame if you want a chopper. The only thing missing seems to be the sidecar loops and the toolbox mount.

 

+1 on what SeaZund said. Sell the frame and get one from Pauchgo. Your OEM frame is worth 2X what you will shell out for the aftermarket one.

 

And the back bone is missing( I think)

 

I thought that it was chopped like that wouldn't be worth much of anything

 

Your primary concern is the amount of trail you would end up with and there are numerous ways of keeping the trail acceptable. I would suggest you start here with the rake/trail calculator because it addresses the different things, including head rake, that affect the trail dimension.

http://207.57.8.251/tools/rake_trail.html

Ultimately you want to keep your trail between about 4" to 6" for a chopper and this calculator will help you in deciding what needs to be done. For example on a Street 750 rigid chopper build I'm doing I'm going with a 12" extended girder fork (42" overall), a 36 degree rake, and a 25" dia tire (19" rim). To do this I need to have a 3.25" triple-tree offset to achieve a trail of roughly 5".

In the old days we had to either trig out all of this crap or just guess at it and today's online calculator makes it very easy.

Of note I'd highly recommend that you have a certified TIG welder do the re-welding of the fork head and have the weld x-ray inspected for any defects. Weld failures resulted in many deaths in the 1970's because if the head weld breaks it launchers the rider head-first into the pavement. The costs are insignificant because your life is literally dependent upon this critical weld.

 

After making my prior post I have to agree with the above. Paughco offers the best after market frames in the industry for Harley Davidsons (excluding the Street 500/750 that it has no current interest in).

Rigid frames are about $1,000 and swing-arms for about $2,000. Save the original frame because it cannot be replaced. Someone will want it and might pay you as much for it as it will cost for the Paughco frame. If you want to change the rake then do it on a Paughco frame.

http://www.paughco.com/2008-catalog/...20Paughco.html

 

Another option.

http://www.atlasprecision.com/about.asp

 

+2


Bear in mind that the handling characteristics will be much different and at low speed suck on a raked and stretched bike. They may look cool but that's about the only thing they have going for them as far as I'm concerned.


JMHO


LiiT