We all have that one friend who eats, breathes, and dreams the same stuff we all dig, but does so to the nth degree. They are always thinking about the next scoot they are piecing together, and you can guarantee they are staying up at night planning every part and detail. Or maybe they're the one friend who can't leave well enough alone and changes their bike around twice a year, or possibly they are lucky enough to be both.
Jeff Leighton is a plumber from the area north of Los Angeles known as "The Valley" and knows a thing or two about old bikes. He uses this knowledge to dig up carcasses of vintage tin and brings them back to life and has had quite the stable to prove it.
Recently Jeff had built a big twin Flathead chopper that morphed a couple of times from an early '60s-ish chopper into more of a '40s-style bike, but afterward he missed the first version. During this time Jeff found a set of matching number '38 UL cases with the correct cam cover, and that's where this other Flathead started which would eventually revisit the '60s chopper incarnation of the other Flathead, but better
It was a long time before Jeff found all the internals for the antiquated UL engine, but once he did he took it all to Fern and Sayer at Flathead Ferns motorcycle shop in Reseda, where they would sort it all out and carefully rebuild the prewar motor.
Next, Jeff kept digging at the West Coast swap meets like Dixon and El Camino to find the rest of the parts for the bike. The stock '41-up Knucklehead/UL rigid frame came from a friend, and with all of this plus take-offs from the other Flathead Jeff was creating another machine. Originally he had a '30s Harley VL I-beam springer on it, but decided he wanted something a bit different so turned to his good friend and Triumph guru Wes White at Four Aces who helped him assemble a nice Triumph Preunit hydraulic frontend complete with an early British drum brake and new old-stock MCM fork covers. Jeff also pilfered the parts from Wes to make the Flanders riser setup and then narrowed a set of Z-bars so they just barely fit the width of the risers.
Another good friend and chopper legend Frank Kaisler helped Jeff with anything he needed including mechanical wisdom, moral support, and machine work like making a longer 1-inch stem for the Triumph forks. Without Frank's help Jeff says he'd never have got the bike on the road.
Perhaps one of the best parts about Jeff's bike, like many of the real bikes now being built, is that he did most all of it in his little one-car garage with a slant in the floor that would make the sober feel tipsy! Not only that, but Jeff rides the Flatty like there is no tomorrow, no matter the distance-perfect. And if you think this bike is cool, just wait for Jeff's righteous full-show Knucklehead chopper!