Hello everyone, some of you may already know me on here, but I will start this off with a small introduction.
My name is Justin Walls, I own Balls To The Walls Hardcore Fabrication out of Grove City, Oh. I am 28 years old and started my fab shop five years ago with the main focus on building and restoring pre 70's cars and motorcycles.
On to the Build; Once again, a huge thank you to Show Class magazine for making this all happen and allowing me to be a part of the Peoples Champ contest! The bike; I have always been obsessed with history and racing, so put those two things together and it is a lethal combination for me. That being said, I have wanted to get into antique bikes for as long as I can remember. After finishing up my '69 chopper, I decided I was going to pursue my dreams of owning a pre 30's Harley.
It didn't take but a couple days to have my 69 sold, and it just so happened that I found a couple J Model Harley's in the same neck of the woods as the buyer for my chop. The only problem being, they were 2300 miles away, near Sacramento! So I did the only logical thing I could think of, loaded the chopper in a borrowed old astro work van, packed up some camping gear, and my 7 year old(at the time) daughter, and we took off to deliver the chopper and find us a bike!
Although it was super hard to let the chopper go, My daughter and I had an absolute blast! Neither of us had been to California, so that alone was awesome, seeing all of the sights, and just messing around and having fun with each other the whole ride out. She was a trooper too, never complained once about the drive, and even insisted that we camp out in the van the whole time, which I was perfectly fine with seeing how the drive alone, plus trying to buy another bike was going to hit the pocket book hard!
All went well until we tried to hook up with the fellow I planned on buying a bike from, a 26 j, we just couldn't seem to get on the same page with what was going on, and I don't think he realized how serious I was about buying the bike, or the fact that I just drove across the country to see it! In the end I didn't even get to see the bike, the day we were supposed to meet up he had something come up and didn't want to meet up that evening, aka making me stay out there another day, and I needed to be back to the shop asap to keep a few projects rolling!
I got on the phone and started making calls and also searched up one I had been watching on ebay for a while now. He had relisted several times but never sold, luckily he answered my phone call and was more than happy to have my Daughter and I over right away to have a look. We got there after a short drive back across Sacramento, and it ended up being way nicer, and more complete than the ebay listing had lead on, it was a '27 J, about 90 percent complete, but in pieces. The fellow had bought it as a complete bike, but had taken it all apart to restore it, but abandoned the idea. It was perfect, except he wanted 3k$ more than I anticipated, what I had to spend, and also 3k more than what the other fellow wanted for the 26 in exact same conditions. He wouldn't budge, so we left super bummed, thinking we were going to have to head back home empty handed. We stopped for gas and a bite to eat near the guys house, and I ended up getting a phone call, he dropped down the price, but still wasn't where I wanted/needed to be, so we got off the phone again in the same position, not long went by and he called me back and said he would take my offer, and to come on back and get my new bike!! Success!
Here are some photos from our trip and the bike I sold:
all loaded up, having dinner at the gas station
Had to make a stop at Bonneville!
Unloaded at her new home
AS promised to my daughter, we got to spend an afternoon at the beach
This picture sums up our trip perfect, driving through the desert, dancing and having a good old time!
Now that you all have the back story, I will give you the run down. As I said the bike was near complete, which was exactly what I wanted, being that I wasn't familiar with antique bikes yet, I didn't want to have to search high and low to figure out how every bit and piece worked, and the have to find the parts. I had plans on just putting the bike together as a cut down, then pulling the motor and building a 1/2 mile dirt track bike out of it. That plan got changed as I finally had something sitting in front of me, and also with more research. I have always loved the early hill climbers, they have the perfect look for a race bike with a transmission, unlike the 1/2 mile bikes that don't. I quickly decided to shoot for replicating one of the early FH Hill climbers. They had everything I wanted, a nasty alcohol fuel race motor, a sleek looking frame, small tanks, low bars, everything a race bike should have, plus maintaining a transmission so it wouldn't take much to rig up a temporary light to ride it on the street if I want to.
What Im shooting for:
This is the bike how the previous owner bought it:
Heading home, hard to believe there is a bike hidden in there!
Pumped! The day we returned!
We ended up driving out and back in great time, we left on a friday afternoon and were back home the following Wednesday night. It also didn't take me long to start cutting the old frame up, I needed to shorten the seat post, rework the back half to mate back up, fabricate new back bone bars, and fabricate the bracing to imitate the factory tri bar frames.
I will add a lot more to this here in a minute. I hope that wasn't to long winded for you guys, I had a lot of catching up to do for you!
Thank you for looking! I am glad to have you all along for the build, and hopefully I will get through voting and take her back to California to Born Free!
-Justin
My name is Justin Walls, I own Balls To The Walls Hardcore Fabrication out of Grove City, Oh. I am 28 years old and started my fab shop five years ago with the main focus on building and restoring pre 70's cars and motorcycles.
On to the Build; Once again, a huge thank you to Show Class magazine for making this all happen and allowing me to be a part of the Peoples Champ contest! The bike; I have always been obsessed with history and racing, so put those two things together and it is a lethal combination for me. That being said, I have wanted to get into antique bikes for as long as I can remember. After finishing up my '69 chopper, I decided I was going to pursue my dreams of owning a pre 30's Harley.
It didn't take but a couple days to have my 69 sold, and it just so happened that I found a couple J Model Harley's in the same neck of the woods as the buyer for my chop. The only problem being, they were 2300 miles away, near Sacramento! So I did the only logical thing I could think of, loaded the chopper in a borrowed old astro work van, packed up some camping gear, and my 7 year old(at the time) daughter, and we took off to deliver the chopper and find us a bike!
Although it was super hard to let the chopper go, My daughter and I had an absolute blast! Neither of us had been to California, so that alone was awesome, seeing all of the sights, and just messing around and having fun with each other the whole ride out. She was a trooper too, never complained once about the drive, and even insisted that we camp out in the van the whole time, which I was perfectly fine with seeing how the drive alone, plus trying to buy another bike was going to hit the pocket book hard!
All went well until we tried to hook up with the fellow I planned on buying a bike from, a 26 j, we just couldn't seem to get on the same page with what was going on, and I don't think he realized how serious I was about buying the bike, or the fact that I just drove across the country to see it! In the end I didn't even get to see the bike, the day we were supposed to meet up he had something come up and didn't want to meet up that evening, aka making me stay out there another day, and I needed to be back to the shop asap to keep a few projects rolling!
I got on the phone and started making calls and also searched up one I had been watching on ebay for a while now. He had relisted several times but never sold, luckily he answered my phone call and was more than happy to have my Daughter and I over right away to have a look. We got there after a short drive back across Sacramento, and it ended up being way nicer, and more complete than the ebay listing had lead on, it was a '27 J, about 90 percent complete, but in pieces. The fellow had bought it as a complete bike, but had taken it all apart to restore it, but abandoned the idea. It was perfect, except he wanted 3k$ more than I anticipated, what I had to spend, and also 3k more than what the other fellow wanted for the 26 in exact same conditions. He wouldn't budge, so we left super bummed, thinking we were going to have to head back home empty handed. We stopped for gas and a bite to eat near the guys house, and I ended up getting a phone call, he dropped down the price, but still wasn't where I wanted/needed to be, so we got off the phone again in the same position, not long went by and he called me back and said he would take my offer, and to come on back and get my new bike!! Success!
Here are some photos from our trip and the bike I sold:
all loaded up, having dinner at the gas station
Had to make a stop at Bonneville!
Unloaded at her new home
AS promised to my daughter, we got to spend an afternoon at the beach
This picture sums up our trip perfect, driving through the desert, dancing and having a good old time!
Now that you all have the back story, I will give you the run down. As I said the bike was near complete, which was exactly what I wanted, being that I wasn't familiar with antique bikes yet, I didn't want to have to search high and low to figure out how every bit and piece worked, and the have to find the parts. I had plans on just putting the bike together as a cut down, then pulling the motor and building a 1/2 mile dirt track bike out of it. That plan got changed as I finally had something sitting in front of me, and also with more research. I have always loved the early hill climbers, they have the perfect look for a race bike with a transmission, unlike the 1/2 mile bikes that don't. I quickly decided to shoot for replicating one of the early FH Hill climbers. They had everything I wanted, a nasty alcohol fuel race motor, a sleek looking frame, small tanks, low bars, everything a race bike should have, plus maintaining a transmission so it wouldn't take much to rig up a temporary light to ride it on the street if I want to.
What Im shooting for:
This is the bike how the previous owner bought it:
Heading home, hard to believe there is a bike hidden in there!
Pumped! The day we returned!
We ended up driving out and back in great time, we left on a friday afternoon and were back home the following Wednesday night. It also didn't take me long to start cutting the old frame up, I needed to shorten the seat post, rework the back half to mate back up, fabricate new back bone bars, and fabricate the bracing to imitate the factory tri bar frames.
I will add a lot more to this here in a minute. I hope that wasn't to long winded for you guys, I had a lot of catching up to do for you!
Thank you for looking! I am glad to have you all along for the build, and hopefully I will get through voting and take her back to California to Born Free!
-Justin
