Pabst Blue Ribbon Cruiser By Steve Kelly

Before David Lynch’s 1986 cult classic Blue Velvet, Pabst Blue Ribbon was thought of as the (cheap) beer of rednecks and vagrants.  The movie however, has changed all that; at least in some circles where it became a retro cool beer to choose.  There is a memorable exchange of dialogue during the film that helped to raise the profile and cultural standing of this beer above the likes of Budweiser and Miller High Life.  The bizarre character Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) makes some small talk with Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan).

Booth: What kind of beer do you like to drink, neighbour?

Beaumont: Heineken.

Booth: Heineken?  Screw that shit!  You should drink Pabst Blue Ribbon!

 

That to my mind is all that it took.  With just those few words, PBR have enjoyed an elongated 15-minutes of fame, they have so far ridden the ‘Cool Wave’ for more than two decades since the film was released to much critical acclaim.  I asked brothers, Jeff and Jason Tiedeken, owners of Metal Morphosis Cycles, why they drink PBR?  Their reasoning was less prosaic… Because it is cheap and it tastes better than the rest of the bargain American brews!  Now, that might be true, but they must have thought more of it than that to honour PBR by constructing this interesting custom creation.

 

The two PBR drinking bike builders were left with something of a moral dilemma when someone left a bunch of hot rod parts at their factory.  A friend of theirs had been working on a drag race car for some time, but as his circumstances changed during the project he needed a place to store some of the parts.  At that time, Metal Morphosis had a little extra room, so they were chosen as the ideal location.  Time passed, a few years to be precise, leaving the brothers to conclude that the parts appeared to have been forgotten about.  After a few cold ones, Jeff and Jason decided that it would be okay to use a few of those forgotten parts.  With two Mickey Thomson tyres at their disposal, they opted to build two custom bikes to showcase the diverse Metal Morphosis Cycles’ talents.  A Suzuki GS550, a surprisingly popular rat bike that has gleaned attention everywhere it’s gone, and this project, a 1960’s Harley-Davidson Ironhead dragster.

 

Jeff and Jason Tiedeken have worked in the motorcycle industry for a number of years.  Jason, a 28-year old mechanical engineer and designer, has made a distinctive imprint in the industry working for companies such as Roland Sands Design and Viper Motorcycles.  Jeff, a 20-year old aerospace welder and fabricator, meanwhile has spent time working with Exile Cycles, Rooke Customs and Edelbrock.  They currently run Metal Morphosis Cycles in their spare time as they build up a solid customer base of their own.  (See Spanish custom bike magazine Biker Zone issue 161 to check out another of the guy’s unique creations).

 

With a clean sheet of paper on the drawing board, the brothers sketched out the idea of a vintage dragster.  They elected to use a Harley-Davidson Sportster engine, preferably one with a magneto.  After a little searching around, they located what they were looking for on Ebay.  Unfortunately, the deal quickly went south, when the ‘just needs a new camshaft bike’ turnout out to need a completely new engine.  The next motor to come along was a 1984 Ironhead Sportster, one of the last to come with a generator.  Once ownership of the power plant was completed, fabrication moved along quickly.  The frame was constructed from the front section of a Paughco frame for ease of registration.  Using a tyre with such a wide profile and massive sidewalls necessitated the frame and drive train to be extensively widened.  The springer front end was chosen to be in keeping with the vintage look they were after.  The handlebars were made with a drop style to give the bike a real racing stance.  A headlight shell was bashed and cajoled into the shape of a rear fender.  All work that is easy for Jeff and Jason.

 

The motor needed to be something special, so Jeff did some extra machine work to the heads.  He had seen a set of modified Harley racing heads in a book from the 1960’s and he tried to recreate what he had seen.  Jeff told me that all sorts of wacky head modifications had been tried during the 60’s, not least because the stock heads were rather prone to major overheating problems.  Luckily for Jeff, one of the best remaining Ironhead motor builders was only a few miles away.  D&M Custom Cycles are renowned for their vintage Harley tuning skills, and they were more than happy to assist on this particular project.  They ported the heads and did every known racing detail they could, turning the tired vintage lump into a screaming 1000cc time bomb.

 

The next item on the Metal Morphosis to-do-list was the paint.  A brainstorming session gave them the idea of Pabst Blue Ribbon, as it is something of a mainstay around the shop and has a genuine vintage linage of its own.  A combination of Midnight black and Smerf blue were laid on to create the true look of Pabst Blue Ribbon by Brian Irvin.  Brian has been employed by Jeff and Jason because of his skills within the paint booth, I’m sure that you will agree, he has done them proud with this rendition.

 

With the paint taken care of, and the powdercoating back from Twin Cities Powder, they next turned their attention to the saddle.  It has been hand tooled and copper riveted and covered by John at Roberticustoms.com.  John has covered every Metal Morphosis seat for the past couple of years, so they knew that he would do a quality job.  By the time the seat was finished and delivered, the construction of the bike was all but completed.  The guys at D&M came up trumps once again at this stage, supplying another vintage item for the project, a good old S&S L series side bowl carburettor, which they have matched to one of their signature velocity stacks.  With this final piece bolted into place, there was nothing left to do, other than to put gas into the bike and take it for a test run.  Getting the bike fired up for the first time was a little time consuming, but now that it has all been dialled in by D&M, it fires quickly and strongly each time Jeff or Jason fancy going out for a thrash around.

 

 

Specification sheet

 

Owner Metal Morphosis Cycles

Builder /Make Jeff and Jason Tiedeken

Model Vintage Sportster Dragster

Time 40-days

 

Motor Ironhead 1984 1000cc

Builder Dave at D&M Customs

Pistons Wiseco

Crankshaft S&S

Connecting rods S&S

Cases Stock H-D

Cylinders Stock H-D

Heads Metal Morphosis/D&M modified stock H-D

Valves XLR Sportster

Lifters Lightening

Camshafts Andrews R5

Carburettor S&S L

Airfilter D&M velocity stack

Exhaust Metal Morphosis Cycles

 

Transmission Stock H-D Sportster

Clutch Carbon plates

Gears 20 x 50

Final drive Chain

 

Frame Paughco/Metal Morphosis Cycles

Stretch None

Rake 40°

Rear fender Ford headlight shell

Petrol tank Metal Morphosis Cycles

Oil tank Moon

Foot controls Metal Morphosis Cycles

Handlebars Metal Morphosis Cycles

Hand controls

 

Front end Springer

Tripe trees

Length

Headlight Bates

Front wheel 21-inch Black Bike

Front tyre Avon Speedmaster race tyre

Front brake Exile/PM

 

Rear wheel 15-inch Black Bike

Rear tyre Mickey Thompson ET Drag

Rear brake Exile Cycles

Saddle John and Mike at Roberti Customs

Paint Brian Irvin of Metal Muppets

Powdercoating Twin Cities Powder

 

 

Written June 2006

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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