hi everybody here is a post about the frame and primary cover for my born free bike

My name is Matt Olsen, I am building an old knucklehead for born free this year.  I have been working on this bike for a while and have done a bit of work to it.   Mike and Grant asked me to do a couple posts showing how the bike progressed over the last year, so here is my first post.   I am kind of detail oriented, so I might drag on and on about little details,  I am sure some of you will like it, and others will find it too thorough or boring .

This is what I started with for the frame for my born free bike.  it is an old chunk of a duo glide frame.  I wanted to use this because the front motor mount is cut for 1.125 tubing.   The only things that I used on this frame were the front motor mount and the cross member  for the seat post.

In this picture you can see that the original 1.500 seat post has been welded and ground flush.  I laid out where the holes were supposed to be and my friend Chad drilled and bored them out. 

Here is a picture of the serious parts of the frame coming together. The transmission mount and rear motor mount are in place and so is the front motor mount.   My fiance Brittney and I spent a week with our friend Chad Pearson building this frame in his shop on his custom frame jig.  We have a frame jig, but it is only good for re tubing stock frames.  Chad's is fully adjustable and can make anything that you can dream up 

In this pic you can see the tubes falling into place, well they didn't really fall into place, they got bent and fit and re bent.   The tubes that go from the engine cradle to the neck are tapered from 1.125 to 1.00 The neck tubes are a little extreme in this picture we ended up re bending them to make the lines a little more subtle. 

here you can see the revised bend in the down tubes.  the rake is 25 degrees just like a stock 36 to 40 knuckilehead.   The axle plates are polished stainless steel  I bought a pair from the first run that Hardtail choppers did a year and a half ago.

here it is almost completed and ready for welding

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i wanted to raise the transmission up an inch and an eight to give the bike a little racier feel,  Here is a picture that shows the reinforcement bar that links each side to each other and the groovy steel uprights that hold the back of the transmission where it is supposed to be.  These look like gumby's legs

cool picture of the seat posts and the two back bones.   Chad did a great job of coping these and welding them, which didnt happen till a little later

and here is the frame all finished up on Chads Fixture.  I still had to make about 20 other mounts for different  things, but that wasn't really hard,  just time consuming

Here is the frame after everything was fitted up and sent off for paint and plating.  

I asked my friend Mike if he could paint the frame, fork and oil tank for me quickly,  I offered to help with the bondo molding and sanding,  man oh man,  I didn't know what I was getting myself into.   We spent three days molding the frame.  After we were done, I had a new appreciation for painters and I can say that I am dumbfounded by the guys that used to do the crazy molding jobs back in the seventies

here is a pic of it just before getting shot with black

and all finished up.  It turned out really nice. 

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 This is the last pic that I took of it before putting the motor in.  I was surprised that the taper is so noticeable on the neck,  but not as apparent on the tubes going into the axle plates.  I think it is probably because of the difference in length of taper

 Here is a cool pic of the primary cover coming together.  Unfortunately I didn't have any pics of it less completed than this.   It all started out as flat aluminum sheets.  I took this pic because it looked like a roman chariot weapon.

 here you can see the bits and pieces.

 front bowl almost ready to weld.

 and here it is welded up. 

 check out the ribbed pressure plate and cool little cover that keeps your foot away from the spinning pieces.

 I hired a kid that I went to school with to help with sanding the primary  he has over 30 hours into sculpting it into something.  Here it is almost finished. 

 I Kept looking at the primary and thinking that it needed a little btt more texture so I spent ten hours welding and grinding the rib on the front.  I think it helped a lot and it looks really good now.

 Here is a pic of the chain guard and primary cover getting ready to ship to the polisher.

 This is a shovelhead or replacement harley clutch pedal.  

 Here it is cut into five pieces.

and here it iswelded together and  mostly finished up.  I still had to do a bit of grinding to make it look a little more organic.distance in taper.