Wow, what an incredible report this will be. It covers final assembly and the road to Bonneville for the 2006 Bikernet Adventure. Talk about an exploit. Also, this build was fraught with abnormalities. At one point I wondered what the hell I was doing? At several other junctures I was like a kid in a candy store with a bag of quarters. In one case the V-Bike kit offered opportunities and solutions. Then I would blunder into another experience and felt like pounding myself with a crescent wrench. But I gotta say that this bike turned out to be an amazing quest, and that’s what it’s all about, right? I hope so, goddamnit.

Generally this John Reed designed frame makes working on a bike project a breeze. Everything fits and is accessible. Unlike a lot of bikes, I could reach the battery, all sides of the engine, the brakes, wiring and the gas tank slips off without a chore. I actually discovered that I could work on the bike, remove the engine, reach all the wiring without taking the tank off. I could leave the cross-over line in place, undo one bolt at the rear of the tank, jack it up to clear everything and leave the feed line to the carb in place.

Let’s see if I can capture the time scenerio. I returned from Sturgis on the 12th of August. The Paint by Jim Murillo and Yvonne Mecialis was completed the next week, the 19th. The following week the Engine arrived from Accurate Engineering, the 23th, after being lost in Yellow Freight's cave of desire . Talk about a scramble, like eggs in a frying pan on run morning. Toss in the salsa, grab a cup of joe and go. She’s damn hot looking engine and tough, but she didn’t drop into place. I had less than a week to mount her, tune the bitch, build another set of Salt Flats exhaust, break in the bitch and hit the street for a 600 mile run to Bonneville.

We planned to pull out on Wednesday the 31st. Racing was scheduled to start on the 3rd and run to the 7th, right smack in the middle of the Labor Day rush. That’s always a heavy consideration for LA residents.

I went to work. I discovered my case vent oil fitting smacked the return fitting on the transmission based oil bag. Whatta drag. The vent fitting had to be removed. I re-tapped the 1/8 pipe threads in the tranny oil bag case and re-installed the fitting, but it still didn’t clear the case. A portion of the STD cast aluminum needed to be ground away.

Next I removed the fitting and put the engine back in the frame. The oil line fitting still rubbed against the case, but the case still needed to vent. You can imagine the jangled nerves anytime you’re working on a completed engine and there’s a possibility of slipping a metal shaving into an oil line. I plugged the case vent hole with a rubber cap, like the one above, over the fitting.

I checked with the boss of Accurate, Berry and with Wil Phillips, of True-Track, also a master machinist. Then I went to work, grinding the case, drilling and taping a new hole for another breather fitting under the case.

I needed the fitting to be deep enough in the threads to allow me to grind 3/16-inch off the case material away, install a new plug and have room for the new breather fitting. I measured it over and over, ground the precious case material away, then drilled my first guide hole.

Burning through my last weekend I installed the engine, loose and used the BDL inner primary plate to pull the engine and trans into alignment. With Gard Hollinger’s, LA County ChopRods machining I had a semi-mid controls shifter mechanism in place.

I was getting damn close to a running motorcycle. I double checked my fork installation and modified a Progressive Suspension shock spanner wrench to fit the Paioli neck fasteners. I stamped it, so I could find the bastard in the future.

I damaged my ISR high/low beam switch, and found a replacement at a local electronics store. Not quite the same size, it turned into hours of fucking with it to make it fit.

The throttle cables were part of the V-Bike kit, but I ordered a separate throttle housing and the cable ends were designed for late model housings. I couldn’t find the right housing, so I modified this cheap one, greased the Rolling Sixes grip and oiled the cables. Remember, build everything as if it will run forever.

For some reason, wait, I know, the tranny vent stuck straight into the air and needed a formed oil line to aim down so it wouldn’t collect water or debri. I dug around, but couldn’t find one. We scrambled through boxes of fittings and junk and came up with the above solution. Works fine. It’s an old car hydraulic brake hose.

With one more fastener in place on the dash for extra support, it was time to see if she would fly. Nyla’s son and Dr. Hamster loaded the Salt Shaker with fuel and we were ready to rock. We thought. She wouldn’t fire, but kicked back. We shut down Sunday afternoon so I could investigate.

On Monday the 28th of August, Glenn and Kerry Priddle arrived from Australia. That’s when we started to get shit done. Glenn was tremendous help all through the Bonneville process. While Nyla headed to the airport, I scrambled to make the Shaker start.

I’m going to back up for a second and tell you about all my wild fuck-ups and how each one had a positive ending. Unbelievable, right? Some of these are a tad embarrassing, but what the fuck. Hopefully they will help other builders and brothers in the future.

Berry set up the engine to be a dual-fire, dual-plug-per- cylinder system with a Mallory electronic ignition distributor. I used “Bandit’s Common Sense” through the wiring process. I had the coils wired in parallel, but she wouldn’t fire. In fact she kicked back so hard she broke teeth off the BDL clutch ring gear. Berry Wardlaw was out of town, so I investigated through other sources.

One source was convinced my wiring was correct, but the timing was out. I made a narrow felt pen mark on the Mallory distributor/base and rotated the distributor clockwise ¼ turn to retard the timing. Then I attempted to return the positive battery cable to the starter. I couldn’t readily find the stainless nut for the copper stud on the solenoid, so I grabbed a fresh nut, although I suspected the stud had metric threads. The coarse thread lock nut went right on until the nut fully concealed the stud, then it bound. With the next throw of the wrench, the shaft pivoted and something arced in the chrome solenoid. The puppy fried, just as I was about to start the engine—I thought.

As soon as Glenn set his bag on the floor, we jammed out to Spyke’s new location, since I thought the starter was a Spyke unit. It wasn’t, but Bill McCahill saved my ass. Then I had to find another Odessy gell battery. I smoked the brand new one. We found one at a local Long Beach speed shop and returned to the Bikernet Headquarters. Scan

That morning Berry arrived in Alabama and e-mailed me a detailed wiring diagram for the coils and told me to return the distributor to the original timing setting. “It’s timed perfectly,” he said over the phone. His wiring diagram showed the coils wired in series. We hooked it up and immediately the motor fired to life. In a sense I was glad the starter failed when it did. I could have damaged other components.

Next, before we fired this 120-inch Accurate baby to life, we pulled the plugs and turned it over to insure lubrication throughout the engine. I did so with an oil line yanked from the Harley-Davidson Oil cooler and watched for fresh oil to bubbling out. It did and I felt confident the oil lines were fastened appropriately. I called several partners to confirm touring model, oil line placement (with the oil tank under the Baker transmission). Again, I was about to hook them up using “Bandit’s Law”. Most guys didn’t mess with touring trannys. I checked my 2003 Road King Manual, but it was a twin-cam— different deal. I finally received a response. Bandit’s Law was off- base. I thought for sure the bottom, tranny oil fitting was the feed, center-return and the top, the vent. My source (names are removed to protect the guilty), called for the bottom being the return and the center, the feed. The starter drill confirmed the oil circulation, and I was good to go, I thought.

I fired it and ran it, but the oil indicator light didn’t work on the Wire Plus dash. We immediately replaced the new oil sender switch. The light still didn’t go out. I pulled the line off the oil filter and oil pumped out. I thought I faced a wiring problem, then the light went out for a quick second, then returned.

Talk about perplexed. I was going out of my mind. I took if for her first test ride around the block, but she wouldn’t shift into second—a small linkage adjustment. I returned after one block. She would shift into neutral, but not second. The oil light was still lit. Then the Devil called from Houston as we adjusted the shift linkage. I asked him, since he recently performed a major custom job on a Road King, but it also was a twin-cam.

”Hey,” Kent said, “pull the bottom line off the oil bag. If it spews oil, it’s the feed.”

“Damn,” I thought. “Why didn’t I think of that?” I yanked it and it puked oil onto our lift. I pulled the center-line and it was bone dry. That confirmed it, but it didn’t jive with the oil coming out of the oil cooler. Berry runs all his motors, so I could only ascertain that the engine was shipped full of oil and it was picking it up from the crankcase. We rerouted the lines and the oil light went out immediately. I took it for another ride. She was beginning to hum, but my speedo didn’t work, nor did the tach.

Again we thought for sure the wiring was cool. I picked up the supplied paper work and the bold faced, underlined copy hit me in the mug. “This device will not run straight off the coil (even with an adapter). If you are installing this device on a stock bike with a tach wire, be sure that the wire provided does not run to the negative side of the coil. Check for wire color and continuity at both locations (tach and coil) to determine if the tach wire is connected to the coil. Improper connection of this wire will burn out the tach input and void your warranty.”

The wire was connected to the coil. I was fucked. The only gray element was the statement about the negative side of the coil. So, of course, I moved it to the other side of the coil, since it didn’t seem to have a positive or negative marking.

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