Six burly fuckers lifted the awkward, bulky, cardboard box into the back of the pickup. We stopped at Wal-mart and bought a $100 motorcycle lift. It has a hydraulic jack with a foot pedal pump, locking safety bars and is good to 1,500 pounds. It’s a necessity for the project since it will lift the bike about 18 to 20 inches to allow easier part installation. You can also move the project bike around the floor on the rolling lift.

We backed up to the garage and ripped open the box with pocket knifes. The tires were lying on top of the frame and boxes were nestled inside. Inside those boxes were more boxes and packaged components. We got all the stuff into the garage, sat down, had a beer and stared at the cool RevTech engine crate.

We kept the paperwork no matter what it was with. Slowly we sorted the individual parts in the best order possible down one side of the garage. It was really cool just looking at all those packages, with the chrome-plated goodies and unfinished sheet metal tank that began to take on a paint job in our imaginations.

There is a lot of stuff here -- Santee, Accel, Spyke, Doss, Custom Chrome, Jesse James, RevTech, OEM Harley-Davidson, etc…. all in a $11,500 bike kit…

Operation Bad Bones is now in progress.

There aren’t any instructions so a basic knowledge of motorcycles is required.

Bones mounted the fat and skinny Avons on the 40-spokes down Randolph's Exxon. He bitched a little as he stuffed in the tubes. I drank a couple beers.

A person needs to pre-assemble the bike before anything is done, making sure no parts are missing. It may be a kit, but that doesn't mean everything is going to work together or even be included in the shipment. The parts are not in any specific order so it takes quite of bit of time searching for the correct bolts, washers and locknuts for whatever parts you're putting together.

By Sunday evening, the metal was starting to look like a motorcycle. We encountered a few missing parts in this stage, but they were minor. There were no rear brake shoes, no small screws to hold the stator and no bracket or bolts for the oil tank. Most of this stuff is available at a parts store, but we’re going to see if CCI will stand behind its product. First we’re going to tell the shop where Bones got the kit.

-Smack

Back to Part 1.........