Red Ruffian
By Jeff Deasey
Hot Bike Magazine may 1999

There are those who like to keep to themselves and avoid conflict, then there are people like Jim Falschlehner, who live their lives with an "in your face" style. Not the type to do anything that one could consider subtle, Jim's method of bike building fits perfectly with his on-the-edge persona.

Falschlehner found his 1980 Shovelhead as a basket case that had spent many a year in boxes at the corner of a friend's garage. Getting his friend to part with the basket case was very tough in the beginning, but after a few months of nagging, Jim's friend gave in. Falschlehner's buddy sensed that the bike would be better off in the hands of someone with a driving passion to get it back on the road, which made his decision to sell an easier one.
Falschlehner started by clearing an area in his garage to spread the parts out. After a few days of pacing around the garage and viewing the frame and other parts at every possible angle, Jim decided to build his shovel with a nostalgic look, but with a little modern get-up-and-go. To take care of things in tile looks department, Jim went to work by removing the stock swingarm and welding on a rigid rear from a damaged frame. When the modifications were finished, the frame ended up looking like a classic rigid from the 1940s. The H-D front end was disassembled and for a true "chopped" look, Jim machined the fender mounting lugs off the lowers with a lathe and then polished them. After the stock triple trees returned from the chrome shop, the front end was reassembled with a 2 1inch H-D spoke complete with dual H-D disc brakes and Continental rubber. A 16-inch H-D spoke wheel rides in the rear with dual Wilwood calipers on Falschlenhner's own custom bracket and a Dunlop tire.
When it came time to handle the "get-up-and-go" part of the project, Falschlehner set his sights on a goal of around 90 horsepower. To reach this goal, Mike Long of Long's Engines started work on an 86-cubic inch shovel based on the H-D cases at the bottom of the "basket." The original flywheels and rod assembly were returned and joined to a pair of S&S pistons. H-D cylinders were slid over the pistons and capped with Branch Engineering-ported H-D heads. To make sure the fuel from the 40mm side-draft Weber is properly directed through the heads, an Andrews cam handles valve-opening duties while a hot M5 Morris Magneto system sparks things off. At its exit, the spent gasses make quite a ground shaking impression as it passes through a set of straight pipes designed by Jim. He refers to this exhaust system as his "up-swept/loud" model-something his neighbors can agree with.
With a nostalgic look still in mind, Jim settled on H-D fuel tanks, a custom rear fender and strut assembly and a "keg-style" polished oil tank and the taillight from a 1934 Ford help pull it off. Red and white twotone paint was what Jim had in mind so a trip to So-Cal Speed Shop in Pomona, California, was in order. Once at SCSS, Tim Beard was given a rough drawing of what the paint was to look like and he began to prep the fender and tanks. When Tim emerged from the paint booth, he gave Jim a big thumbs up. All that was needed was a few days of curing followed by color sanding and polishing and the bodywork was ready to go.

To connect himself to the bike, Jim picked a set of drag bars on 2-1/2 inch risers and custom fabricated his own set of forward controls. He also designed his own springer seat for which he hand-formed the pan.

When he's not riding his new rigid to work, Jim makes a few modifications to it and takes it out to race on the dry lake bed. Although it's still being dialed in, Jim's happy to announce that a dyno test shows an output of 95-plus horsepower at the rear wheel. That's a few above his 90 horsepower target and it pulls strongly through each gear. As soon as the weather improves, he's hoping to get back to us with some elapsed times from the dry lake track.