Chop Till You Drop

I'm not sure if this will ever turn in an actual project for me. Just in case it ever does, I'll start a project thread. Chop Till You Drop is the story of how Testarossa came to own a KZ1000 chopper project. For the new guys here who don't know me, I'm a member of the He Man Chopper Haters Club. Actually that's not entirely accurate. I'm just not enamored with bikes that aren't particularly functional. Hardtail choppers don't seem too practical to me, and I have seen way too many chopper shows thanks to the Discovery Channel. No offense to any chopper builders or lovers here. I can appreciate any well built bike, regardless of the style. It just seems that the past decade has held the chopper as the highest form of motorcycle expression and I have had just about enough of that.

Anyway, I like to think of myself as an open minded individual, and so I might just build the darn thing to see what the fuss is all about. So I never set out to buy a chopper frame, but I have been on the lookout for a complete 1015cc motor locally without success. I have seen this craigslist add for a while now: houston.craigslist.org/mcy/2420587281.html I decided to call and see if he had a motor. As luck would have it, he did, and said he would sell the whole project to me for $250 since he needed it all out from his garage due to an impending move.

Here's the reason why I went:







It's all there except the carbs.

When he said he had a lot of parts he wasn't kidding:





More in the next post....

He was planning on adapting the engine from a Kawasaki sport bike which he thought to be a Gpz1100. However, the other motor was a 16 valve, water cooled, 6 speed transmission, and has Keihin CVK36 carbs. How about a first generation Ninja ZX1000 motor? Turns out he has the fork, wheels, radiator, oil cooler and dashboard from that bike. Lot's of good re-sale stuff there. I might keep the forks. They seem pretty stout for conventional forks. I know one thing, if I do build the chopper, I ain't trying to run a water cooled, oil cooled ninja motor in there. More parts explosion pics:














Sorry about the blurry cell phone pics. I killed my camera in Puerto Rico about a month ago.

Good luck with it mate. I don't know if I could ever go the hard tail route myself. I've always been told I have a hard head, but I know I don't have a hard ass. And I like to ride WAY too much.
Your other bike is very sweet, if you put as much thought and heart into this one as you did that one, you will have one gorgeous chopper.

Thanks for the kind words. Just keep in mind that this will likely be waaayyyy on the back burner. The main reason for posting this is to document when I purchased the project. Before I even consider the build, I would have to get some form of a title on the frame. He had none, and claimed that he had the state research it. Apparently it has never been registered in the State of Texas, and is listed as a custom or home built frame. I guess that I would have to get a bonded title. We'll see.......

I forgot to mention that he had the roller stuck together in his garage before we loaded it, and with those 16" wheels from the ZX1000 front and back that thing set reeeelllll looooowwww. The bottom frame tubes were about 3" off the floor.

at least the rake in the frame doesn't look to crazy.
i have a waaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy back burner cb750 chopper project that might be interested in mating with your frame if you decide not to use it your self.

a hand made girder or springer front end and a 19 or 21 inch spoke front wheel,prism tank,molded frame,fender molded in,velvet seat maybe some gold leaf. :silly:

surely no one bike can satisfy all the motocyclisimo that you have hiding down in the root cellar of your soul testa!!!!!! :pinch: :dry: :huh: :evil:

leon

you can never have to many parts!!

Ok this could be interesting... if not from all the hard work that will go into it then the possibility of seeing you have an organ rejection type reaction at some point to the chopper look as it comes along! :woohoo:

Seriously though, I do like seeing projects that meld different bikes together when the stuff being used wasn't from a pristine example of a bike, now that bugs me to no end! :pinch:

I have several friends with choppers and have grown to appreciate them. I won't even rule out converting an LTD to some sort of chopped vehicle. But looking at that frame makes my kidneys hurt. I'm with you. The roads I ride on suck even with a good suspension. Hard tail is too impractical.

"Konging" the frame keeps the shocks.

www.hondachopper.com/garage/konging/konging.html

Good Fortune!

Patton wrote: "Konging" the frame keeps the shocks.

www.hondachopper.com/garage/konging/konging.html

Good Fortune!

Too late to Kong that one.

I have always liked this guy's work on an aesthetic level: www.chicacustomcycles.com/bikes.htm

He doesn't work off of drawings or computer renderings. He will study the frame and let the project guide itself. Kinda like my mindset.

Well I was loading up some parts to move out to my storage unit, and decided to prop the frame up on some tires. Sometimes all a project needs to get going is a little vision. The first picture is about how the previous owner had the thing set up in his garage. He was trying to use those 16" ZX1000 wheels front and back. He also wanted to use the water cooled motor from that bike as well.





I'm not sure why anybody would want to make this project any harder than it needs to be. The frame is built around a 1015cc KZ motor. The motor mounts don't work for that water cooled engine. Not to mention chopper + radiator = Yuck. I dug out my old spoke wheels, KZ fork and a trashed out tank just to fill in the blanks. Amazing how much better that spoked front wheel makes it look. Hmmm, I might find this project to be an interesting creative outlet.