Phatail Night Train & Caseyleah
Now I understand what snowball means! One modification requires many more to either fit correctly or to achieve the look you are after.
I STARTED with small cosmetic mods — grips, mirrors, single seat. These lasted all of the 16 km the bike did. Not satisfied, all were removed and sold on Gumtree along with nearly all the original parts.
Then the mods bug hit hard and bit deep, starting with trying to fit a Genuine H-D Tri-bar LED tail light and finding out that it wouldn’t fit a 150 rear tyre model bike.
I needed a wider arse end so I grabbed a Phatail kit.
The bike got stripped and the frame got modified; the engine came out and it snowballed. But — and isn’t there always a but — work and other projects took priority so it was left in the corner of the shed for just over five years. The bike was there, unfinished and seemingly that was going be the end… but.
A good friend of mine suggested I call Joe at Taverner Motorcycles. Hello Joe? Have I got a job for you! The next week I packed up all my milk-crates full of parts and deposited them at his shop in Bowen Hills with a proposed build sheet.
The 240 PM Phatail kit was a defining moment. The rest of the bike just had to look a tough as that. A set of custom Fat Daddy 50 wheels were ordered to suit.
The rear fender mounts were cut off the frame and the transmission rebuilt using the new gears supplied with the Phatail kit.
After looking at the cut frame I decided that it needed to have a slightly longer and lower stance than factory and decided on the three-degree head set and two-inch-over fork tubes with lowered Progressive rear shocks. These were later ditched in favour of the Legend Air Ride kit. The front and rear suspension was ordered along with the Russ Wernimont Designs wrap-around front guard to suit the new 23-inch front wheel.
It has since been fitted with a Performance Machine open-belt primary drive.
Finally, the bike was completely stripped and the frame smoothed and prepped for powder-coating.
The only parts that haven’t been replaced are the engine and transmission and I’m pretty happy with them.
It looks and sound tough — exactly what I was after.
Words by Adam Bostock; photos by Rick Benson; model: Caseyleah Clackson
