Raw Steel

By JD Boyd aka CCRyder

 

In my never ending quest to search out Canadian talent in the bike building industry, I recently headed north out of Calgary to the shop of Fantom Frames. Perry Cooper has been located in Innisfail since 1999 and has been working his trade since the mid-eighties.

 

This bike was originally to be Perry’s own ride but when your business is building bikes and some customer shows an interest in your work, you make a deal.

 

With a seat height of only 24-1/2 inches off the ground one would think it was on a rigid frame, not so in this case. The foundation to the bike is Fantom’s own Low Seat Height FXR design. Perry tells me that he thinks this is the lowest FX seat height in the industry. To achieve this Perry uses the FLT transmission with the bottom feed oil bucket. This gives the rider the best of both worlds. A bike you can ride all day with the low custom seat. The 24-1/2 inch seat is 2 inches lower than a standard Softail, which gives you the rigid look but maintains the comfort level. Even with the low seat height he has managed to maintain a 5-1/2 inch ground clearance.

 

11-1/2 inch shocks by Progressive Suspension are attached to Fantom’s own billet aluminium fender struts and dual railed swing arm built to except a 200 tire with their own offset kit.

 

The frame is built with 1-1/4 inch DOM tubing with a 1-3/4 inch backbone and 1-1/2 inch sleeved front legs for strength and aesthetics. Because of the sleeved design the frames and swing arms should not be chromed. This bike has a 2-inch up stretch and a 2-inch stretch on the backbone but they can accommodate any stretch and rake. The rear swing arm also has a sleeved design for the added strength and looks.

 

All Fantom’s frames also use a custom 2-3/8 inch neck c/w press-in bearing cups to eliminate bearing race distortion which is inherent in all machined metals (see Weird Science article). In addition, all Fantom’s frames; the rigid, Dyna, Road King, and FXR are all built ½ inch (500 thousand) taller over the rear cylinder to accept most stroker motors in the industry.

 

The frame is also made to accommodate a Softail seat so the new owners will have an unlimited choice of seats already on the market. A low profile battery box is used to maintain that classic horseshoe bucket look and houses the battery and all electrics including the ignition module, regulator, and breakers.

 

The fenders were hand pounded over a wooden buck and then welded, the front in 2 pieces and the rear in three pieces. Next they were ground smooth, run through a planish hammer and then through the English wheel. Lastly, he cut the side profile by hand, which gives you custom original one-off fenders.

 

The motor is a Stage 3, 131 cubic inch Merch, using a S&S Super D carb tricked out by Zippers and c/w Thunder jets. On paper this should produce 168-horse power. The drive train is finished off with a Zodiac 6 speed OD transmission.

 

The gas tank is a smooth one-piece Softail tank that Perry filled in the twin gas cap holes and formed in a centre flush Buell fuel cap. Next he changed the tank mounting hardware to eliminate the ugly lower mounts stock on all pre 2000 Softails.

 

To finish off the front end they used 1-1/4 inch T-bars with an 8-inch rise and hidden wires. Fat Boy triple trees combined with Dyna tubes which are 3 inches longer than the Fat Boy’s, and Road King lower legs which allows him to run a dual disk front brake as opposed to the single front disk used on Fat Boys. The rear brake is a single disk set-up.

 

Although Perry builds custom bikes, his main focus is on frames, swing arms, high strength roll bars, and other components. They have four jigs that make six different frames, a roll bar jig, and a swing arm jig. Fantom also supplies Merch Motorcycles with all their frames. If you haven’t heard of Fantom before it is no surprise. Perry is naturally reserved and is the last one to promote his work. He seems to be quite content staying in the background working his magic with the raw steel.

 

If interested in any of their custom components, you can contact Perry at Fantom Frame Fabrication Ltd. at 403-227-4457.

 

For more of CCRyder’s stories log onto www.ccryder.com