Gobble-chopper

The foundation to building a chopper was laid, when David Dolm (the word Dolm translates roughly to Pecker), and Science Officer Porno-Jörgen (no explanation needed I think) were out practising nature-urination one day in late Mars, in the campus area of HUT. They saw something red in the nearby bushes. It was a Poni-bike abandoned by some non-green person. The dynamic duo continued their disrupted hobby.

A couple of days later they returned to the same place with Mike Missile, and during another session of nature-urination (the spot is ideal for the purpose), the idea of building a chopper was for the first time spoken.

The bike lacked both wheels, and the left crank was broken, but the wreck was otherwise intact. The first vision was that Poni would be reborn as a fullblooded Trike, with an effective payload equaling one casket (24x0.330 cc) of beer. With these visions in mind the bike was transferred to the spacious Haice (a ´82 Toyota Hiace, long model) where it was stored until the beginning of April, when Mike came up with a Jupiter which was in a similar condition. Now there was enough with raw material, and it was planned that the Trike would be taken into use at the eve of May Day.

Now Jösse began to take the two bikes into parts with great frenzy, using his cutting machine, and some days later he presented the two other team members the result which was at least baffling: The parts were reorganised and welded together in the following order:

Steering column (Poni)
Frame (Jupiter)
Frame (Poni)

Unfortunately the steering column was fused with a too small inclination. The length of the fork would have to be over 3 meter. Horror!

One of the main aspects about the project was that only recycled parts would be used, but the lack of time forced the team to make a field trip to David´s ´Speedshop´ (a bikeshop in Helsinki, where David works at weekends). An ape-hanger, and two units of bikechain of Czech quality were purchased.

Mike and Jösse corrected the steering angle, and reinforced the frame with heavy duty pieces of metal at Mikes welding laboratory.

The team had difficulties solving the problems which come along with the two rearwheels, so it was settled that a chopper with a fixed sidewagon would be the answer. Therefore a box made of h-d anlge bar was made. The fork was extended with a piece of square pipe. When the frame and fork was put together, the construction showed such virility, that the two team members decided that a state of purity was achieved and no further steps needed to be taken.

The perfection was completed, when Mike by coincidence found a childrens bike with exceedingly fitting pair of wheels which were tried on the chopper. They could see a glimt of the future.

Again Jösse suprised the rest of the team, when he a few days later, rolled out of Haice a functioning Chopper. He had installed the wheels, chain and ape-hanger, and the viewers were at least said dumbfounded. The Chopper gathered a public of outsiders who with many superlatives praised the bike. Finally, so that the existence of the bike would not become common knowledge, the team members had to use brute force, when separating David from the chopper, and hide it in the optically non-penetratable Haice. He had become obsessed, and didn´t want to part from it anymore.

The chopper was to be painted, and after a short argumentation the color for the frame was set to non-glare black, and the fork and wheels silver (aka. gypsy-chrom). The parts were painted at David on the outside in a wind exceeding 5 Bofor. For this purpose the chopper was again taken apart, and after a minimal time of drying, reassembled. Whoah! if the construction left you dumbfounded before the painting, it now hit like a nuclear explosion in your front pocket. Totally devastating.

During the following weekend Jösse and Kalkonmajor (Turkeymajor) Qwistis searched through Jösse´s garage, and came up with a standard farm-tractor´s power outlet coupling with quick release. They emulated the propellershaft with roundsteel and a grinder, and attached it to the chopper. The coupling was welded to the wagon at the end of an extension, which was stabilised with two pieces of roundsteel, which earlier had been a part of a transport track in a potatomachine. The connecting of extension to the roundsteel was made with the Qwistis weldless methode. A pair plastic wheels, which Jösse had purchased from a local car-part shop, were also installed to the wagon. finally the metal parts of the wagon were painted with gypsy chrom. A plywood piece, painted black, became the bottom of the wagon.

At some point Mike went to a textileshop and bought some black mocka fake leather. Some days later another excursion was made to the local hardwareshop, where a piece of metalgrid, pipe, hinges and a paddlock was bought.All this was against the ecological principe, but the lack of time forced to take a few shortcuts. The final work was done that same evening at the laboratory of Radiometry, where a bench made of plywood, foam rubber, aforementioned fake leather and a good sniff of glue, was constructed and installed. Also the wagon was completed with the installation of sidebords, hatch and cooling-element. The coolside was insulated with styreneboards, and holes for the bottles were made in the bottom styrene piece.

Technical data conserning the project

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David Dolm & Science Officer Porno-Jörgen & Kalkonmajor Qwistis & Mike Missile

Comments and corrections concerning this page should be directed to: poltsi plus ath at seven seven seven dash team dot org

Last modified: Mon Jan 22 21:35:52 1996