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You know what really irritates me? I drive all the way out to the dump, pay my five bucks to get in, and the only bikes laying around are those granny...
Here is the donor bike, taken apart for chopping. Even though this bike is older than time itself, it came apart very easily, and the chrome parts had...
This chopper will have long forks and a slightly modified frame when completed. I did not want to change the bike too much to keep some of its origina...
I used the original fork dropouts, so they were cut leaving enough meat to weld to the new fork legs. Save the original fork legs, though. With those ...
Since the long forks are the focus of the bike, and the frame adjustments will be based upon them, they are made first. I started with a pair of 4 foo...
The original fork crown is used as the base of the triple tree. The new fork leg extension tubing will be welded directly to the ends of the crown, so...
Once both fork crowns are ground out, and both fork leg extension tubes are exactly the same length, lay the unit on a flat surface and tack weld both...
To get the dropouts aligned in the proper place at the ends of the new fork legs, first bolt them to a front wheel as shown here. They should be secur...
With the fork legs tack welded to the fork crown, and the entire unit laying on a flat surface, place the dropouts onto the fork legs as shown here. F...
Once the forks are solidly welded, place them into the frame to have a look at what you have so far. Most likely, the bike will seem to lean back too ...
The top tube is cut from the frame right at the thick part of the lugs on both the head tube and seat tube as shown here. The frame is no longer a gir...
A rather lazy way to change the angle of a welded tube is to slice a thin pie shaped wedge out of one side, then bend the tube towards that side to fi...
Once the down tube was bent upwards to close the gap (easy wasn't it?), the area was welded solid as shown in here. If you made your wedge shaped cut ...
I thought it would be cool to use only the original bicycle tubing to make this chopper, and since I had a pair of fork legs from the original bike, I...
The un-squished fork tubing was cut to fit in place as a new main tube, and the leftover end was welded as a gusset where the lug stub was left from t...
Now that the frame has been modified, place the bottom bracket about 6 inches lower than it was before. Although the frame is still tall and laid back...
I found an old cardboard box that contained bicycle safety brochures, and promptly emptied its contents into the garbage can so that I could salvage ...
The gusset is cut from the steel using a worn out cut-off disc on the angle grinder. Although a jig saw with a metal blade is best when curves are inv...
To form the top of the triple tree fork, 2 1/2 inch nuts will be welded into the ends of each fork leg, and a plate will be secured to this by a bolt....
Weld both nuts flush into the ends of the fork legs as shown here. The closer to center you can get them, the better. If the nuts are quite a bit smal...
The fork will use the conventional triple tree with a top plate bolted to the top of the fork legs, but with a slight difference - it will include the...
The best way to ensure alignment when welding the triple tree plates and gooseneck is to bolt the two plates as shown here; this is how they will be i...
Once everything is setup, all you have to do is place the gooseneck into the fork stem, and weld the two plates in place. It's best to make a few soli...
Once the front forks are completely welded and ground, they can be installed onto the chopper. Now the frame can take the weight of a rider - of cours...
Options for a seat on this chopper are abundant, but what I was looking for was something that would fit the theme of the original granny bike, of cou...
Once I re-installed the super fat spring seat, it was almost sitting on the rear tire. The nose of the seat covered up the original seat post hole, an...
Once I rode around the block a few times making sure that everything was good, I stripped the bike right back down and painted it using the original d...
Yep, Granny's Nightmare really worked out nice! I even reversed the front fender just to add some more wackiness to the bike, but everything looked gr...
Besides one small incident where the seat almost fell off and started rubbing on the rear wheel, all went well with Kathy's first test ride (was that ...
The moral of this story - never say that a bike cannot be chopped. When you find something in the dumpster, don't think, "Hey, look at that scrap." In...
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