my secret chopper

Not certain I've written about this before, but I have a dirty old secret. Way back in the 1970s I fell for chopper motorcycles. 

Harley Davidson motorcycles have a monopoly but choppers can also be based on the British Triumph and various "metric" or Japanese makes. In my naive teenage years I fell for the CB750 four (cylinder) choppers that had a distinctive exhaust note. It was more an angry growl than a rumble. They were given the name of their rigid frame builder Sankee.  

Twenty years ago you could have picked up one of these for a song, but now they're a lot more collectable. 

In a wonderful coincidence I googled for an image of a Santee chopper and found this attached to a writeup of a fellow that fell in for thrcHobda chopper in the 1970s and was in the right mind in the 1990s to buy one, in need of restoration, for $250. 

Reference: oz-bike mag. 

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He's done the hard yards to present his bike like this, and added a few more dollars. 

As happens when age creeps upon us, we revisit the dreams of our youth. And, as Santee choppers are not easily sourced anymore, I've had to go via another path to freedom. May be a bit of luck has come along for the ride by presenting me with a Honda "donor" bike. Typically for me, it wasn't cheap, in about 2022 I paid market price for a twenty years old Honda Shadow 750. Back in the day these were unabashedly marketed as a Harley type "cruiser". Low slung, a vee twin engine a kind of rumble, black with lots of chrome trim. Although HDs are hands up pants down winners in the engine sounding stakes, Honda has always won on the reliability and affordability stakes. 

The other major obstacle for chopper dreamers in Australia is our bureaucracy. Unfortunately they went in hard on "modified" motorbikes and set tight restrictions on what can and can't be done. Within fine tolerances, a bike must be kept stock, modified modestly so as to avoid attention *, or engineer approved.

My chosen path is to modify mostly within the rules. *Its a thing, more prevalent among Harley riders to have two sets of exhausts, one for riding and another for inspections. If you work in mining or other high paying slog, you can more easily afford to pay a fine and inspection fee each time a cop "defects" your bike. I don't want to travel that path, and luckily a modified Honda exhaust draws less attention. 

But a chopper has to be chopped and here are my secret prospects:-

1. Cheap rigid, using struts to replace shocks, and lower the rear end.

2. Sprung solo seat to lower the seat profile but offer spine care.

3. Tiny tank to offer a chopped look, light and sloped.

4. Paint. I've always liked white choppers, so the "tins" will get the treatment.

5. Remove tank mounted "dashboard" and fit a small speedo. 

6. Improve exhaust breathing by removing baffles. 

7. Unclutter engine by removing emissions control hoses.

7b. Remove large air filter and replace with smaller unit. This may need rejecting? 

8. Strip bulky chrome bits: fork covers, chain guard. 

9. Chop fenders. Front is done, rear will be but back severely, necessitating relocation of tail lights. (Cop magnet.)

10. Add a sissy bar. 

After these mods, I'm sure other ideas will emerge. 

So recently I ordered parts to get things going. The snag with my bike, all Honda Shadows in fact, is their tendency to gunk up with stale fuel. This can happen in a little over a week! So it will complicate and delay randomly. A devotee from USA recommends draining the bowls after a week to avoid fuel drying out in the carbs.