We've all heard that cats have nine lives - but bikes that have three? The first time Tom Endres saw this Sportster it was a primered rolling chassis, nothing else. The bike was long dead but rumored to have once been on the cover of STREET CHOPPER in 1971. This notion would have stayed a rumor if Tom hadn't actually seen a copy of the issue at his friend Big Roman's one night, proving the rumor to be true. This managed to spark Tom's interest even more in the bike while the rest of his buddies were into anything but Sportsters. Seeing that old issue of Street Chopper really made him want to know more.
Big Roman had originally built the bike, but by the '80s, after its brief celebrity appearance in STREET CHOPPER, the bike went skeletal. Roman's brother Fats who ran Fats' Sportster Haven in Redondo Beach, California, had the chassis on the tailgate of a pickup and the front end under the truck while the motor had been pulled and used on a different bike. Although Big Roman, Fats, Tom, and others spent years of garage time working on Shovelheads, Fats' Bear Bike, and other long and lean choppers, Tom never forgot about that white Sportster.
Running or not, the bike did stay in the hands of family and friends. In the mid '90s, Little Roman resurrected the rusting rolling chassis and gave the white bike a pass at life number two. It was rough, but it ran. Now Little Roman was working as a machinist for a mutual friend, Gux, in northern San Diego County. Tom had met and become friends with Gux through the guys while hanging out at Sportster Haven in Redondo Beach as well. Gux had a serious machine shop, so after work Little Roman and Gux would tinker on the bike. Some time later, Little Roman needed cash, and he knew both Gux and Tom still drooled over the bike, so he offered it to them at a great price. By this point, Tom was living out in Pennsylvania. Even with the bike being across the country, Tom couldn't stop thinking about the long, two-wheeled machine, and so he made some calls.
In less than 24 hours, Tom had Gux agreeing to let him temporarily store the bike at his shop in San Diego. Tom had managed to score the bike from Little Roman over the phone - the bike was his! Granted, it was 3,000 miles away, but he now finally owned it, and he was going to rebuild it the way he remembered it all those years ago.
While waiting for Tom to come collect the bike, temptation got the better of Gux. He just couldn't help himself and had to take the bike out for a ride. What could it hurt, right? Famous last words. While Gux was riding it, the transmission blew exploding the fragile engine cases, all while Tom was still giddy in Pennsylvania. Oh, the irony.
The bike was dead again, but when your good friend and riding buddy destroys your motorcycle, and he also happens to have a machine shop with every tool imaginable, it is not exactly the end of the world. Gux, who obviously felt obligated to let Tom rebuild the bike at his shop, was also looking forward to working on it. So the nightmare of life number three began. First on the list was rebuilding the cases. Since it had a valid 1965 California registration, welding in new sides to the transmission/engine cases and machining for massive oversize countershaft and mainshaft bearings turned out to be more work than they thought. Their philosophy was to make it bulletproof and it would run forever - no life number four for this bike.
It took years to rebuild the engine alone. Every bushing, journal, and bearing has been replaced, many of them handmade, with surgical precision and tolerances. Try and find parts nowadays at an H-D dealer for an iron motor and you will quickly learn the meaning of the word "obsolete."