The Chopper Compendium

I've had this notion crawling around in my mind for a long time now and thought I'd throw it out for comment !

I saw a build in "Back Street Heroes" that consisted of a 550 suzuki top end and a custom cast all alloy set of cases split horizontally to create and "Indian/Henderson" looking bike with a goldwing trans !

I was thinking about something similar using cylinders and heads from a VW beetle engine and the same kind of cases as the above , (beetle flat 4 engines and Indian inline 4 engines were 1300 and 1340 cc's respectively) !

A trans from a transverse engined shaft driven jap bike would provide the right angle 1 to 1 drive needed to give it a chain driven rear wheel !

What do ya'll think !!

gearhead1951 wrote:
I saw a build in "Back Street Heroes" that consisted of a 550 suzuki top end and a custom cast all alloy set of cases split horizontally to create and "Indian/Henderson" looking bike with a goldwing trans

Do you have a link to go with this?

This one?

Yeah , thats it ! I remember that poorly designed and out of phase driveshaft ! That thing must vibrate tike tuning fork !

i like the front end

That thing must vibrate tike tuning fork !

Nah...

agreed that front end is nice. .......what is it?

that front end is a "schwinn bicycle" type ! The first ever front suspension on a pedal bike and it handles like it too !

I aint knocking the level of craftmanship overall , but it is a letdown when glaring mistakes are overlooked before unveiling a custom like this ! ( and yes , if that driveshaft aint an optical illusion then at speed those out of phase yokes would cause an extremely annoying and destructive vibration)

with only the one pic to go from it looks like the spring shock setup might be too small and probly could be hidden a little but i bet some playing arround could get it right but remember most magazine bikes dont get ridden only shown and only special people like most of the ones on this site even realize how little they could be ridden but they do sell magazines and even spark a few ideas for people like us to figure out how to make em work

Obviously built more for looks, with limited function....

Very good looking tho and can be ridden, so succeeds in their goal.

The tranny/driveshaft reminds me of the early Beemers, but I believe they had a better angle, almost straight.

gearhead1951 wrote:-snippage-
I was thinking about something similar using cylinders and heads from a VW beetle engine and the same kind of cases as the above , (beetle flat 4 engines and Indian inline 4 engines were 1300 and 1340 cc's respectively) !
-snippage-
What do ya'll think !!

What do you have in mind for a crank and cam ??

I think that there should a good few potential doners for crank & cam , just have to sort thru the scrapyards for an auto engine with the desired bore spacing and go from there !

Remember , the cases are going to be a new casting and the best way forward would be to design the cases to accept the parts chosen instead of trying to make them fit after you cast it !

I saw a VW cylinder head cut into two individual heads and modified to work on an antique V twin to convert it to OHV , what I envision would involve some modification of the heads but not quite THAT much !!

I have seen VW engines where 2 fired and 2 were used as a compressor....

I've seen plans for that. Thinking of building one. Small homebuilt airplanes use 1/2 vw engines sometimes.

gearhead1951 wrote:
A trans from a transverse engined shaft driven jap bike would provide the right angle 1 to 1 drive needed to give it a chain driven rear wheel !

How do you get a tranny from a shaft drive bike to convert to chain drive?
(just showing my ignorance!!! )

Suzuki and kawasaki both made such engine/trans combos , they use a right angle drive either off of the crank to engage the trans or off of the trans countershaft to engage the shaft !

A lot of the dieselbike builders seem to like that right angle drive to place at the rear wheel if they use the auto transaxle that came with the engine they chose !

If you are interested go to www.dieselbike.net and have a look around