Jeff Johnson of Huntington Beach, California, has one of the worst bike build stories on the planet, in terms of bad luck. It all started after a show on the Discovery Channel got him to re-think his own bike. He had a stock bike with few custom parts, far from the full custom he was after. With all of his friends buying full customs, Jim's bike kept looking more and more stock.
Jeff made a trip down to Long Beach, California, but when he was told the cost and time to get a full West Coast custom bike, it just was not in his budget. So, he started calling around and picking up some chopper mags, and found a shop close to his house. He stopped in and told the guys what he wanted, and was told it would take no time at all. Jeff left a deposit to start the bike build, a large deposit, and that was where it started to go bad. After three weeks or so and a few big payments, the phone calls stopped coming from the shop. Jeff stopped by to check on things only to find that the shop was closed down and cleared out.
He did every thing he could to get his money or the parts, but soon found that all the parts were on hold and without receipts, he was screwed. He tried everything he could but had no luck in getting his parts.
The next piece of bad news came when the motor he ordered was missing, and the shipping company had no record of the bike shop paying to ship out any motor. So from here on out, Jeff was paying for the parts himself and picking them up in his truck, making sure he would get what he paid for. But, he ended up buying most of those parts for a second time.
Jeff then came across Tom Prewitt and the team at Damon's. When Tom told him that he could paint the bike but would be unable to build it right away, because of how busy they were, he told him about the guys out at Chop Shop Choppers in Thousand Oaks, California. That is where the story took a turn for the better for Jeff. Todd, the owner of the shop, got to work on providing a happy ending to this story. Jeff showed up with all the parts that he had so far, and Todd got started on getting this bike done.
A Covington single-sided swingarm 240 Softail frame, with 42 degrees at the neck with 8 inches up and 4 inches added to the backbone, was placed on the lift and the crew got to work on filling it up with parts. A big 113-inch Evo motor from Patrick Racing with a 42mm Mikuni carb, a Joker air cleaner, and an exhaust from Wicked Bros were used. A BDL primary drive was added to transfer all the power to a Baker six-speed transmission with a PM hydraulic clutch setup.
The suspension up front comes courtesy of Perse with 5 extra degrees in the triple-trees and the brake lines hidden in the tubes. For the rear, the single-sided swingarm was turned into a solid mount, and a custom-fit oil bag was placed were the Air Ride would have been placed. The wheels used to roll the bike around the shop are Blade Runners from Ego Tripp covered in Metzler rubber. The brakes consist of a six-piston Hawg Halters up front and a four-piston PM caliper out back, with both rotors matching the wheels.
When it came to covering the bike in sheetmetal, a front fender from Martin Bros., a Fat Katz rear fender, and a gas tank from Creative Customs Cycles were trimmed, shaped, and fitted to the bike. Then, it was all shipped out to Damon's where the magic began. The frame was molded and filled,while the rear fender was shaped, and they added a little sheetmetal to the side to lengthen the fender. Everything was covered in a blue metalflake with Maltese crosses airbrushed all over, then translucent sea-green flames were added.