Loveland Pass, Thanksgiving day

YAY new fender and sissy bar!!!!

a few years ago i stumbled across a spare tire ring from either a model A or T or something. It was complete, in good shape and $40; sold. i ended up selling half of it on ebay and on the advice of Gentle Ken i saved the side with the "pig tail". He said something about that little bit being ol' tyme cool and a way of marking its authenticity. Either way, i figured it was a good addition to the parts stash. I had a pipe-dream involving a shovelhead way back in my grey matter so maybe i was collecting parts for that. 

Years later, the shovel hasn't materialized and the trusty ironhead isn't as cool as i thought. I love that bike and we've got a lot of miles together; we're friends so she isn't going anywhere. But some of the bits i put on back when i first chopped her do not do the bike any justice. in this case i am speaking of the rear fender and sissy bar. the flat trailer fender was an easy alteration as well as the re-bar sissy. but i've never been pumped about how they looked. so with a legit fender hanging on the wall and snow falling outside i figured it was time for an update. 

 a mistake i made in mounting the original fender was not leaving enough room for tire clearance. this severely limited my tire selection. and by adding some space, the two radius' match a little betterer.

 make sure the wheel is in there straight

 then make sure the fender is in there straight

 I tacked the two mounts in the middle before i tacked this lowest one. there was a bit of twist in the fender and doing things in this order seemed to rectify this easily.

 once the fender was located within the frame and in relation to the wheel i tacked the two pieces of 1/2" cold rolled together and firmly welded one to its mount. this way i could make all the bends at the same time and they'd end up mirroring each other. it worked pretty well surprisingly and considering i was kinda "free-handing" the bends i figured laying it out on the floor or table would be weird feeling.

 the end result sticks 27" up from the fender, not straight up. i left the fender long to catch the dirt and plan to mount the tag and light using standoff gussets welded to the sissy bar. i wanted to show off as much fender as possible.

a chain guard?!?!?!

choppers can't have chain guards!!!!! 

fuck that, i'm tired of having grease splattered up my back, i've never been cool anyways.