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Massachusetts madman rakes it from the rear!
By Sandy Roca
Paul Scanlon, a rather soft-spoken 'type of dude, makes his noise with an 88-inch panhead instead of a lot of words.
Since he's not someone who does things in a hurry, his bike is the product of quite a few years of building and
experimenting until he had everything the way be wanted. And, what better place than the Northeast for
experimenting.
With all the rain and snow there's always plenty of downtime.
Scanlon is a resident of Waltham, Massachusetts, where there are quite a few custom scoots. And, in any given
area where there's an abundance of choppers, usually a definite trend gets started that regulates what is or isn't the
right way to build. Scanlon really didn't have anything against what a lot of the area guys were building, but he did
want to build something that'd be entirely different from the norm.
For starters, he raked ...his neck, but without laying a torch to the steering neck. Instead, the rear section was extended 6 inches and pulled Hunt magneto were installed. A stroker lower end made out of old style 80 wheels which were off-set bored for late crankpins was made by Jack Atrell. The combination of the stroker and oversized 10.0:1 MC pistons brought the ol' panhead's size up to 88 inches.
In addition, all the critical innards were polished, and sent out to E. E. Lindskog, in Bedford, Massachusetts, for balancing. The beads received a port and polish job, along with a set of 2-inch intake valves and a late model Tillotsen carb.
A lot of the bikes in his area are still running the ol' standby pipe and fishtails, but again, since be wanted to be a little different, a set of drag pipes and baffled dumps were used.
Scanlon shaved all but the top four cooling fins off the barrels, and then bad them polished and chromed.At the same time the rest of the -brightwork was done, with some of the parts (valve covers, pushrod tubes,
transmission cover, and front end springs) getting the brass plating treatment, courtesy of South Shore Plating,
The molded frame, cut down fatbob fender, and brass plated Sportster tank were all painted in black lacquer.
To finish things off, drag bars were mounted on 8-incb risers AND 5-inch dog bones to clear the tank. A set of Cibies were chosen for nighttime jammin', and the seating is taken care of with a Bates solo seat and pilion pad.Although it turns cloudy and miserable nearly every weekend, Scanlon has still managed to get in a whole bunch of ridin' time. And, when the weather gets too bad he'll be right back in the shop makin' more changes. Who knows . . . maybe living where the sun don't shine all the time has some advantages
