Believe it or not, this Restamod began life as a shell of a 1977 FLH restoration project that had somehow survived a garage fire before Joe got his hands on the charred remains. “I wanted to perform a matching numbers, non-period perfect restoration and showcase the fact you don’t have to rake and stretch a frame or use an aftermarket frame to achieve a hot rod-feel motorcycle,” said Joe. “Maintaining the ability to keep the bike legal for registration and state inspection was a top priority.”

Joe got right to work disassembling the bike and said, “The frame was stripped of unnecessary mounts, brackets, tabs, etc. I knew I wanted to slam the seat down and as far back as possible thereby opening up the area under the seat and removing the large factory battery and oil tank [oil tank replaced with a slim finned oval unit]. I wanted kick start-only and electronic ignition so I still needed a battery.” Deciding to relocate the battery under the tranny, Joe removed the stiffening brace under the transmission and to retain rigidity, the trans plate was welded to the frame while the rear trans plate mounting risers were stiffened with a gusset plate. Originally Joe was going to use a low profile Odyssey battery, but since this was only going to be used to power the ignition and not a starter, Joe found something even smaller, a lithium battery weighing less than a pound(!) from Full Spectrum Power (www.fullspectrumpower.com).

Things are not always what they appear, like the fact that this “shock” equipped bike is actually a rigid. “The original square-tube swing arm was swapped out with an early model round-tube unit that allowed the use of a late-model axle with disc brakes. Since I wanted the seat mounted as low and a far back as possible, I had to lose the functioning characteristics of a swing arm by replacing the shocks with struts,” said Joe. “However, I wanted to retain the look of shocks so I designed struts that emulated the exposed spring shocks to complement the springer front end.” As I said, things are not always what they appear. Speaking of that front end, the tubby FL forks gave way to a 3”-over springer cradling a skinny 21” wheel where a tubby 16” wheel once lived.

Continuing the slim look, Joe replaced the stock Fat Bobs with a tank from Cole Foster that changed the profile of the bike by being mounted higher in the front. It’s all about attitude man. When it came time for paint, Joe turned to someone we all know from the land of television, Nub of Nub Grafix (www,nubgrafix.com) in Walden, New York. I don’t think Nub’s capable of doing a bad paint job, even if it was called for, and hit it out of the park with a two-tone House of Kolor Candy Blue paint job with gold leaf and pin striping to finish it off. “Nub’s a great guy and an awesome artist, motorcycle painting aside,” said Joe adding. “He killed it!”

You can’t have a Shovel without a Shovelhead and Joe said, “When I bought the bike, the entire engine was powder coated black so I took it back to the classic Shovelhead color scheme [raw with black cylinders] and also split the rocker covers. I wanted to do something different with the rockers so with some pushing and assistance from my good friend Big Jim, decided to implement left-side rocker shaft oiling. Special oiling nuts were machined from solid brass and the shafts were drilled longitudinally from the left, then cross-drilled at a location inside the rocker for oil to flow. Right-side brass acorn nuts were machined and seals were installed.” During the rebuild, the engine went from a stock 74” displacement to a more potent 93” and with all the other weight loss the bike incurred, it has become quite a spirited runner instead of a plodding FLH it started out as.

So has Joe created the Restamod of his dreams he was looking for? “Yes! I performed a matching-numbers restoration of a burned heap of a motorcycle, kept the original frame and its geometry and created a unique hot rod motorcycle in the process. It handles nice and rides like a rigid.”

If you like what you see and want to find out more about Vadori Designs, visit www.vadoridesigns.com or call Joe at 742-242-5232.