With apologies to Damon Wells.  I received this on March 23’rd and had the post all written up it somehow got placed in the “draft” category and never got posted.   Shame on me and sorry about that sir.   Here she is at last.

Damon Wells writes in:
Hi, thought I’d send in a couple of pics of my bike I took today, and one I took 15 years ago. When I got it in ’96 it was a wrecked chopper with a seized engine. The guy I bought it from had started collecting new parts to fix it up, so I already had a head start. The forks were bent in far enough that despite being 4 inches longer, the wheelbase was shorter than stock! Once I got it home and freed the engine (seized rings), I cleaned up the single Mikuni carb, and got it started before disassembling it down to the frame. I borrowed a camera from a co-worker after pulling the bent front end and the Dunstall rear sets, which I still have. Why a chopper had rear sets is beyond me, but considering the state it was in, not much would have surprised me.

Since then, I’ve replaced just about everything but the frame, tank, crankcase, crank, rods, pistons, cylinder head, gearbox case and the hubs. It’s got a Megacycle cam, oversized valves, Boyer ignition, Magura master cylinder, alloy rims, Bosch halogen headlight and lots of other little mods and tweaks. I stopped counting how much money I have in it a long time ago, I’m probably better off not knowing!
Keep up the good work, love the site.
Damon Wells
Houston, TX

Damon that is outstanding! It’s got a great line to it. I think you found the perfect handlebars for it. It’s just plain right. I know you never “really” get the dollars back but the satisfaction of a save like this is a feeling that’s well worth it. Congratulations on a great build.

The before pic. Damm…