Lowriders by Summers

01/08/2026

Any of my Peeps out there going to Sturgis this year ?
I'd love to see any of you and trade lies and exagerate stories.
I'll be at the Holiday Inn jn Spearfish from Friday evening (Aug 7th) until Tuesday (Aug. 11th) early morning.
The Holiday Inn is Hamster Headquarters for the week, so there's a veritable bike show of crazy customs the whole time.
I'm at the Holiday pretty much the whole time I'm there catching up with about 300 friends I get to see once year..
So.. anytime that's good for you. should work for me.
Message me for my phone number if you're so inclined..
I love BS'n with choppa-hedz..

08/07/2026

A month from today we'll be at the Sturgis Rally with many of you.
While you're there, be sure to check out the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum.
That building is stuffed with all different makes and styles of bikes.
Definitely worth the price of admission... and much more.
I've had the honor of having one of my builds from the early 80s being featured there for the past couple of years.
The museum is a non-profit to benefit our motorcycle addictions, so take your friends and family there and do it often to support them..
Thank you.

27/05/2025

Back in June of 2012 a customer called and inquired about building him a digger similar to Sn**ch (shown in the first 2 pics)..
Not a clone.. but similar style and lines.
He insisted on using an all chrome Honda front end he had with 6" tubes.
I explained that with that much of a drop in the frame, it would require severe rake and it would flop terribly.
He didn't care.... that's what he wanted..
My first show bike Fandancer had 60 degrees of rake with 6" tubes.
When I repurposed Fandancer from a show bike to a daily rider back in '81, I attempted using 6 over tubes, only to go to SB&F two days later to purchase a 6 over girder for it.
StilI heavy flop but much more stable. (see 3rd pic)
I just needed to learn how to ride it..LOLOL
That was my daily rider until it went to Japan in '98
He had already started to hoard parts for it.
We struck up a deal to build the chassis and bring it to paint ready form.
We used a stock frame cradle as a base , just as I did with Sn**ch but using a KZ900 swing arm as well .
In the first wave of parts he included an SBF tank..
Shortly after Ross started to shape up the frame, he came up with a different tank to use.
We all agreed it was a better look for this bike.
As Ross was setting up the frame, he did some measuring and saw that the bottom peak of the tank would likely hit the top of the motor with the drop tube frame.
As we were going over the project one Saturday afternoon, Ross came up with the idea of turning the tank around..
That allowed it to clear the top of the cam cover.
Ross then welded in spacers to slightly change the angle of the tanks tunnel to coincide with the angle of the cam cover.
Then he capped off the ends of the tank to flow into the top rail and moved the gas cap.
Next was fabbing the oil tank/ battery box portion of the frame.
After that he machined a set of billet triple trees using the bottom one as the "T" for the dual calipers to make all of the lines join neatly.
Then the simple headlight bracket..
Next was the seat pan with pins to slip into the frame.
These held it in place and allowed for easy access to the oil cap and battery.
Then my friend Matt Solmonson covered it in soft, glove type leather for a beautiful fit and finish.
Next we had to deal with the handlebars.
Due to the huge rake nothing was readily available to clear the tank..
So, Ross had to come with something to clear the tank as well as be comfortable to reach with the stretch in the frame.
Next it was on to the molding and shipping out a bit of plating.
I spent the good part of a week mudding and sanding, and sanding, and sanding on those parts.. lolol..
It was ready for the first coat of primer...
More sanding and another finish primer coat to be done and ready to ship.
He was obsessed with using 19" wheels front and rear.
There are only a very few 19" tires with rear tread design and they are hard to find.
Those are intended for older Limey bikes that ran 19 fronts and 19 rears.
All 19s are very skinny..
I tried to get him to use 21s or 18s..
They have a few wider options, although the 21s are meant for the front.
That would easily be doable to ride though..
But no... had to be the 19s..
The frame ended up with 60 degrees of rake in it and sat about 2" from the ground...
Not exactly the way I would've wanted the bike.. but.. the customer gets what he wants.
He wanted it painted as well... but it just wasn't in my time frame at the time..
I'm really not all that excited about shipping paint work anyway..
The last few pics show it set up in his driveway..
I never heard more from him, whether it was finished or not.

19/05/2025

Back in 2014 a guy began calling me with questions about what and how to do things to his CB750 chopper
After about a month or two of this he started asking what it would take to have me do some things to update it..
The more we talked over the following few weeks he came to the understanding the project was maybe a bit too much of a task for him to do.
He sent some pics and we went over a lot of questions he had..
Finally we struck up a deal for him to bring it in for a makeover.
The bike was originally built around a Sax 5th Choppers swing arm frame designed and made by a friend of mine in Denver, Ron Lowe.
I truly doubt that Ron built this bike back then, but it was one of his frames.
The first 2 pics are a couple from the group of pics he sent me.
The bike really looked decent and he was riding it the way it was, but he wanted it to be freshened up.
There was obviously a lot of use on it and the paint and chrome showed it.
But, as I said... It looked decent.
Something I'd call a 10 footer... lolol
Before I tore it down I wanted to address some things while it was sitting with full weight on it.
I had Ross Noard make new rear fender rails to move the top shock mount forward slightly.
The next 4 pics give you an idea of what was done.
I threw out the stupid lowering blocks and had him move the lower shock mounts back on the swing arm.
Using those blocks, the bottom mount sat behind the axle a bit and I don't like that or like using the blocks either.
This all made little visual change, but a slightly better ride and stance with a cleaner look..
Next was the front brake.
It had a really ugly clamp for a mount and it had to go.
As long as we had decided to rechrome the complete girder, I had Ross weld a mount between the girder rails.
I intended to roll that caliper back and just use the 2 Heim joints., not a long rod.
He would have no part of that.
He thought that extension rod gave it an Old School look..lolol..
Then as I was setting it up, I noticed the mounting plate was really thin and ugly.
So I had Ross whip me up a better one and had it plated.
The next 5 pics show that process
Then I disassembled the bike and realized it would look better if I dropped the tank down over the top rail some..
If you look close to the two "before" pics, it had two 1" chrome spacers holding the tank higher on the backbone...lolol
No way on that one either.. he really liked that look.
He did concede to omitting those spacers, however those pike nuts had to stay.. lolol..
Next, I had Ross weld bungs in the oil tank as I planned to use braided stainless lines.
Then I noticed the hacked up mess of the girder stem.
It had been welded and rewelded so many times it was a frikken mess.
You couldn't replace the stem bearings with it that way....lolol
Ross chucked up the tree in a lathe and turned all that crap off and made it so bearings could slide on and off.
I figured out an external fork stop later, during the assembly
The next 3 pics show the tank and stem before he fixed it.
Next are the pics of the chrome order back from the plater..
That's $2500 in chrome in those pics..
Then on to the frame molding and much later, the paint.
That much molding can take a ton of hours to do.
Before I had the tank and fender blasted, I did a quick mock up of graphix to do on the tank and fender.
The next pic shows those graphix...
Considering how involved he was being, I thought it best to send him pics before I continued.
No way he would go for that... It was too flashy.
He wanted something more simple..
Next I suggested some spears of variegated gold leaf to richen the look up some.
I sent him pics of the tanks on my HD to give him a general idea..
No way... that gold leaf has a taste of copper in the variegation which appeared as orange to him..
That would make it appear as a Denver Broncos theme to him.... lolol.
No way was that happening..
The next 2 pics show what I ended up with that he actually thought would work.
Next I painted the motor black..
Back in the first couple pics you can see that someone had masked off the bottom of the frame and used chrome tape to separate the colors... lolol..
I assume because over the past 50 years or so it had become damaged or scraped and no one could match the blue.
He seemed to like that two tone idea..
So I blended the Kandy Cobalt blue into the black, using silver pearl in the base.
That actually looked pretty kool with the motor installed.
Then all the sub assemblies like the girder, the rear wheel and brakes were done..
Next, on to the wiring
The Finch box was beat up worse than I thought and the wiring looked ok as you see in the next pic.. just kind of overdone ...
I straightened up the box and figured out a way to mount the new Dyna coils as well as the voltage regulator which was previously mounted on the outside.
Dyna coils can be tricky to stuff mounting in electric boxes because of their angled ports.
A DynaS was installed next..
When I got the bike, the seat was sitting loose and tucked into the frame.
I took the seat apart and modified the base to have locating pins fit inside the frame rail next to the battery and velcro holds it in place.
Then put it back together using the original foam and cover.
Then on with final assembly and ride p**s out of it on a Sunday....lolol
Not the way I like to do some of the stuff...
But all in all, still a nice 750 that does turn heads..

15/05/2025

This is what happens when an old retired painter sits around the house all day...
DARLA !!!.... you better hide the dog house...

09/05/2025

Back in the winter of 2012 my friend Keith Barnett had a donor CB750 he was itching to cut up and build another rigid chop..
He had been calling around and found that even our friend Red at Cycle One in Oklahoma was a few months back logged on making frames.
Keith wanted to get on it then so he'd have it ready in the spring.
Keith never just bolts things together, they have to be just the way he wants them... a bit different from the rest....lolol..
That all can take some time..
That, and chasing down parts you need for a 40 year old motorcycle can hold you back as well.
I had a roller stuffed away that I started piecing together for a customer until they either lost interest or.... more than likely ran out of money.
I was able to track the customer down right away and worked out a suitable deal for Keith to buy his parts..
Within 48 hours Keith was waiting for me at the shop to pick it up.
That's the first pic here...
Since his last build, The Beast, back in about 2005, Keith had honed his welding and fabrication skills and was going to do the fab work himself on this one.
That's just a lot less for me to have to deal with and have done.
I got Keith a Round oil tank that was made to fit a stock Softail frame.
That allows you to get the Honda battery inside the oil tank with room to mount most of the electrics as well..
He wanted to avoid having a big box sitting on top of the motor under the carbs.
The next 4 pics show how he did that.
Most of the flat fenders on the market are designed to fit an 18" tire and it's hard to get a good look with one using a 16" tire.
The next 3 pics show Keith pie cutting sections and re-arching the basic 6" flat fender to fit the 16" tire the way it should.
It's hard to get a set of pipes that sit high enough for ground clearance, especialy with wider motor 4 cylinder bikes.
Even with the 10 over tubes, this bike sat pretty low.
In the past I've cut pipes and raised them some.
But then there's that pesky chroming involved...lolol.. and that can get spendy, especially when pipe and tubing is involved.
To make it a bit easier I've just raised the motor mounts about 1 1/2" in the past and that seems to work for me.
The next 4 pics show Keith doing just that and then omitting the top rear motor mount for chain clearance.
Keith had decided to omit the rear point of the axle plate.
He cut it straight down at first and as we talked about that, we agreed that maybe he would try to arc the end some for a more finished look..
That, and he welded caps on the end of the tubing as well..
Those two things really finished off the axle plate nicely.
Then he made the mounts for the WCC Villain gas tank, even made a panel for the nose of the Le Pera seat to blend into the backbone.
After that he tied up some loose ends then tore it down for final paint.
Keith then sand blasted the parts for him to mold.
A guys gotta love it when a customer is willing to do all the hard stuff....lolol
Next he brought it up to me for finishing and paint..
Once I had it primed and blocked out I laid down the HOK black base.
Then I laid out some hot licks using HOK Chrome Yellow and Tangelo..
Off to my friend Dave Eckel for some lines and letters.
Back to the shop and I buried it all in clear.
Then I blocked the graphix smooth and buffed the parts.
I had my friend Ross Noard bend up another set of tiller bars to fit a stock Honda top tree.
Keith found a new (in the box) set of side by side Alphabet pipes on Ebay for a really good price.
Then the tiller bars and a bunch of other parts off to the plater .
Keith did this project as kind of a tribute to his earlier chop featured here last month called The Beast.
So, he thought the moniker, "Son of Beast" fit the build well..
Good idea I think... similar... yet a shorter version...lolol.
The final 3 pics are of it finished when Keith took in to the Hondachopper.com meet in North Carolina.
As my friend Tom Radd and Horst Heiler always preach...
We must "SAVE THE CHOPPERS"..
Yeah Baby !!!!

02/05/2025

This is probably a pretty boring post compared to the last ones here.
No frame mods or tons of fab work done..
It's just another example of what goes into the detailing of a generic stock update.
An interesting part of this build is the rear seat cowl.
It was fabricated for this bike using a donor gas tank from another Yamaha RD.
The rear section of the tank shell was cut off and used as the base for making the rear seat cowl, giving it the same basic form as the tank.
Although thats a common thing to do as I understand it... it's a pretty inovative way to make them work together.
Dean Bruhn did the mock up to make everything fit as the way he had planned and brought me the tins to paint to duplicate the factory graphix, making the cowl fit in with that scheme.
The first and last pic are one that I grabbed off the internet to compare it when it was first released to what Dean had done
The next couple of pics show Dean mocking it all up before he brought the parts to me..
The following pics show how I meaured and documented the factory graphix before the parts were blasted.
Then the dents and repairs were done before the black was laid down and the graphix were plotted out and sprayed a gold that I matched to the OEM color.
Then, everything was buried in clear.
The following 3 pics are at the shop, making certain everything lined up once they were mounted.
The finished pics were taken at the Bearded Lady show in N.E. Minneapolis in 2015.
A lot of subtle changes like the radial finned heads and annodized rims set this off as a very interesting project.
Definitely a custom bike in it's own right....
Well done Dean.

02/05/2025