Honda K2 Chopper Stopper

AS A KID I dreamt of owning a cool chopper or custom like the ones you see in the magazines, but making money was hard and saving was even harder, so when I decided if I wanted a chopper, I would have to build my own.

In 1990 I answered an advert in the classified that said, ‘Santee chopper frame and other parts to suit a Honda K model,’ and even though I had no idea what a Honda K model was, I gave the bloke 250 of my hard earned cash and dragged the frame home.

The other parts I got with the frame were a set of six-inch-over forks, oil tank, electric box and some handlebars so I was well on the way to owning my very own chopper.

The next thing I did was look through the for-sale adds again till I found an advert for a very rough Honda K2 still registered for $500, and I knew I had the rest of my chopper.

It then took me about three or four weeks to get all the parts on the frame, and with a ripped Cobra seat and rusted Harley rear guard, I had my chopper ready to go to the RTA.

Lucky for me, the frame came with police numbers already stamped on and had been registered in Victoria before, so getting it on the road wasn’t as hard as I thought, and before long, I was up and riding—and I rode the arse off that thing for years, cleaning things up and getting new parts when I could.

In 1998 I had the bike looking good, but on the way home from a bike show, some prick in a station wagon decided he didn’t want to stop at a stop sign and proceeded to write off the front of my bike which pissed me off—but I had visions of bigger and better things, and with the insurance money in hand, it was time to start rebuilding.

I was ringing around trying to find some new forks when I contacted the guys out at Pacific H-D and they told me about a pair of original Harman springer forks they had sitting around for years but never wanted to sell. I guess I called them on the right day as they offered them to me complete with a Chopper Stopper front wheel.

The forks and wheel was pretty badly rusted so I stripped everything down and sent them off to be polished and chrome-plated, and while I was at it, I got stainless spokes laced up to a 19-inch front rim and had a 15-inch rear rim fitted so I could run a car tyre on the back like they did in the ’70s.

Recent modifications include the twin Mikuni carbs to upgrade the old carbs that were showing their age and the electronic ignition to bring the old girl up-to-date. 

 Photos by George; words by Simon