I used to really like watching Orange County Choppers until the drama took front & center. It became depressing to watch, which really suck, because the artistry and execution were incredible.
Never seen Orange County Choppers before, but it's probably like everything else, just not the same, as you said it was once incredible and in our day if it worked, we didn't fix it, and now people want to fix everything that works.
Late 60s Sears was selling a foreign made low cc bike for like 250 bucks. One of the guys at the base last name Powell bought one and the first thing that stopped working was his headlight. He still rode the thing even at night. He had a girlfriend living at white sands Fort Worth and that was over 40 miles one way but he managed to make it every day without killing himself. I can remember one night he asked me to follow him down our 4 mile winding country road to the base and he used my lights to help him find his way. I forget the reason but he ask me to let him use my car to do something and he would leave the bike for me to ride. I came out the back road headed to Venus Tx where there was a Texaco gas station on the corner of 160 and that farm road. The old station was a typical old station with that small red crushed rock or pebbles. I came flying in and hit the brakes and it laid over sideways. Brings back another long ago memory of my old friend who worked at Plaza Lincoln Mercury Houston with me. He had a really nice 65 fast back Mustang all Black and with a high performance 390. He drove to college station Bryan Tx to watch a Nascar race one weekend and he had a problem on the way there with the engine. He had a bent push rod and he pulled into an old station with several old guys sitting around taking it easy, that was Navasota Tx, about half way to Bryan from Houston. He pulled his valve cover off and walked over to one of the old guys and ask if they had a hammer he could borrow. They said no we don't have a hammer, so he looked around a bit and found two old bricks. He took the bent push rod and used the bricks to straighten the push rod. He fired it up and it ran like it should. He said the old guys just sat there and looked amazed. He was good at improvising, one Lincoln 460 kept coming back to him with a valve train tick,.and the 3rd time he just stuffed shop rags in the top of both valve covers. It never came back again. The only thing wrong with the engine was the car firewall was too thin and it just telegraphed the valve train being so close to it. Some people just have extra keen hearing I guess. Now that was a long time ago.
I insisted on Jake selling his bike back in 1982 or so, he was crazy on it, and i didn't like riding on them, not enough protection from all those big heavy autos for me, but millions do love them.
When you slid the bike down, did you get hurt? That's something your friend, riding without a headlight that long. My oldest brother had a Ford Torino with 390 hp. I wonder how long those folks ran that Lincoln with rags in it before they found them. I can understand making do with two bricks for a hammer.
Actually, if memory serves me right, we had a short break up, and when I came back you had gotten rid of it.
Just a little road rash but nothing serious. I doubt they found them, the Fords had zero lash rockers, actually it probably got plenty of oil. The engine probably lasted long enough to go to the bone yard. The 12,000 dollar Pantera with the 351 Cleveland all ran so hot the oil would turn to wax and plug the oil pickup screens. They were very nice cars and fast too. If you had to remove the engine and didn't scribe the shift rods you were in for a heck of a time getting it to shift without scratching gears. They used a 5spd Zenith rear trans axle and it had exceptionally large shift rods attached to the case, all fine splines. It wasn't made for drag racing but that type of car you wouldn't have to worry about shifting fast, the gearing was pretty wide and capable of high top ends. Too bad they didn't have a cooling engineer at their design department. I had gone and looked at a new corvette on the showroom floor and it was the big block with two fours from the factory, that car was 7200. I already had a new Mustang and decided to keep it rather than buy a corvette. My dream car was that Buick GranSport that only come in two color choices, the Yellow and Blue and the White. I couldn't get it financed because I was only home for three days from the Army. I felt pretty bad since I paid 1600 down and that was a heck of a lot of money in 1970. I never cared much for buying any GM after that due to their screwing me out of the car I had saved for. I didn't get that car but I did get a job and it wasn't long after I started working, that same car I wanted had been sold and brought back due to using oil. There was nothing wrong with it and back in those days it was no considered excessive to use a quart of oil in 500 miles. Probably had been driven to slow and not really broke in properly. I took it out on the freeway and broke it in believe me. The torque was really good and you had a 100 miles an hour before you could spit out the window. It was every bit of what I wanted. Later a couple years forward I bought a 428 Square back Torino, I am certain it had more torque than that Buick. A real good Buick or Olds was that 425 Nailhead, the olds had a factory package that was two fours and a cast iron manifold. My friend in Pahrump bought a 68 Ranchero that had the engine replaced with a 425 Nailhead and all GM power train. He had better carburetors and kept the factory intake. Prior to that Nailhead the owner he purchased it from had a side oiler 427 that blew up and he just happen to have that 425 so he used it and did a really nice professional swap. You talk about a nice sounding exhaust system that Olds engine really sounded nice and nothing like a Ford big block. My buddy loved to drive that 65 miles to Vegas because all the road hogs loved to ride up on your bumper and he told me he would just press the pedal down a little when someone would get even with his door. No one ever passed him ! The gas mileage was great unless you opened that second 4 barrel.
Good, you didn't get hurt badly, I had a bunch of those close calls riding many bikes, and some of which I did get hurt badly. You seem to have a lot of mechanical knowledge, which sounds to me from experience. What's your favorite kind of motorcycle? I think for me, it would have to be a 650 triumph like I once had and totaled it. Just being young and dumb, and had to keep going faster, until I crashed it. It's a shame we have to experience things before we learn anything when we are younger. If you had to do life over and knew all you know now, what would you do differently? This 650 Triumph below, which I put up earlier in my first post, looks just like the one I had at 13 y.o., the one I totaled.
To Be honest I wanted a new Honda 750. My wife's best school friend was married to a guy and veteran like myself and he bought a new Honda 750. I got a ride on it and it was love at first launch. Then it wasn't long after that my cousin living in Galveston bought one because he was a policeman there in Galveston and they had a private escort service not a Police motorcycle department but they were allowed to buy their own bikes and it paid 25 dollars an hour for escort. I liked it so much I applied for the department and was accepted but I changed my mind and did not want to move to Galveston at that time. The only reason I wanted to join was to get into that escort service. When I was younger one of our friends had a Father that was a Harley guy and he bought the friend one of those Harley Sprints. It was a sleek bike and small compared to the regular Harley's but very nice and well built.
The one Marie got rid of, when we broke up for short period, "which I had posted earlier", was a 750 Honda, I loved it too, looked like the one below. It was fast and all chromed up just like this one. It was lowered and easy to handle and had a Chrome crossbar to place your feet up on long trips. Mine also had a small back seat with the short sissy bar on the back padded.