This bike came together in no time for Wink Eller, but it took a lifelong journey to make it happen. It started back when Wink was about 17 years old, living on the East Coast and looking for a change-the West Coast sounded pretty good. Money was thin back then (some things never change), so how could he head out west without spending a lot of money? Then he found just what he was looking for-a '57 FL. The bike was in good shape, and Wink is the kind of guy who can fix anything if necessary, so he wasn't worried about riding cross-country on that bike.
Well, he and the bike made it to the West Coast, and he made a name for himself, too. He's known to a lot of people as Wink Eller, the same guy who's broken more than 40 land-speed records and still holds more than seven. Some know him as Wink Eller of Wink's Performance, the master motor builder, or even the big guy from that TV show Big where they built big stuff. As the years passed, he never forgot his first love, the old '57 FL, and many times he said that when he had the time and the money he would build a bike just like it.
Well, that time came when he found an FL frame (not old but cool), and it started all over again. A friend of Wink's picked up a rigid Paughco frame with 28 degrees of rake in the neck and 2 inches added to the downtubes. The frame was just sitting in his friend's garage when Wink showed up at a BBQ, saw the frame, and asked the owner what he was going to do with it. The frame ended up in the bed of Wink's pickup truck, and headed back to his shop in Temecula, California.
It was then that all the memories of the original FL came back: the open road across the country, the road trip itself, and all the cool people he met along the way. Wink also recalled all the things that weren't so great, such as having to kickstart the bike, burning up points with folded plugs, and drum brakes that worked just so-so. So this time around it would still have the look of that old '57 FL, but instead he'd build a bike with all the best the industry could offer.
Wink pulled out a '78 FL four-speed trans that he had boxed up and just sitting under one of his workbenches. It was gutted; everything was pulled out, and the case was sent out to get polished. Once it was back, Wink packed it full with all-new Andrews gears. It was still a four-speed, but now he knew that everything was new and fresh. Now, since Wink is a motor junkie, he knows that he could have gone with an old pan to keep the flavor of the bike he once had, but then he thought, "Why, with all the cool-ass shit out now?" Wink started to build a big-inch motor as soon as the set of STD cases showed up. Next he filled them with JIMS flywheels and rods, then installed a set of Axtell pistons and cylinders and topped everything off with a set of custom-built by Wink STD heads. There were a lot of things in between to get the motor to 120ci, including a custom-cut cam that Wink calls the 730. Then he bolted on a 48mm Mikuni, Dyna S ignition, and a set of pipes that he made just for this bike.
The powertrain was done and ready to go in the frame; now it was time to get the bike off the lift and on the ground. Wink had the Paughco frame painted gold-metal flake. Although he knew that the paint for the sheetmetal and set of 3.5-gallon split tanks was going to be flat black, he still wanted a cool frontend. As luck would have it, Wink came across a '36 Harley-Davidson Springer. Wink took the Springer apart, checked to see that everything was perfectly straight, and then sent both legs out to OC Painting to get them powdercoated black and the adjusters chromed. When it got back in Wink's hands and installed on the bike, the roller moved fast. A set of H-D wheels with stock Star hubs-a tall thin 21-incher for the front and a stock 16x5 for the rear-was covered in Avon rubber.
No shocks are necessary with a hardtail, but what about a set of springs under the seat? It sounded like a good idea, but the springs put Wink in an uncomfortable riding position, and they also moved way too much under the seat. So Wink hardened up the hardtail with two pieces of 1-inch round stock and welded the seat mounts to the frame. Wink likes the height of the seat and doesn't mind the rigid. Then he bolted on a '39 H-D headlight and a '57 H-D Hummer taillight, along with a set of H-D stock foot and hand controls. When it was all done, the bike was clean and simple, just like the original, and that's the way Wink likes it. Now that he heads up the R&D department over at BDL in Anaheim, California, Wink rides this bike every day from Temecula-that's just over 65 miles one way. On his way to work, a few guys have asked if Wink could build one for them. This is the kind of bike that you could ride cross-country-it may not be what everyone else would do, but Wink would and did.