The Sugar Shovel.

Another sweet custom ride from the Gold Coast.

We met Steven Hughes from ‘Sugar Shack Motorcycles’ at the bike show on the Gold Coast and were impressed by the range of bikes he had on display. Amongst several standouts was this beautifully executed Shovelhead chopper. 

A few weeks later I sat down with him in his Nerang workshop to get the lowdown on this classy build that ‘mostly’ started life as a 1976 FXE Super Glide 1200 but has been significantly upgraded with S&S, genuine Harley and performance other componentry. 

“The build is around five years old now.” He grins. “I pieced it together from 2 motor cases and two heads I bought from America. Ollie Logan helped a lot too. He’s a good friend and he set a lot of the bike up. Many of the parts in the bike are from Ollie as well … stuff he’s collected over the years. The modified lifters for example. 

So, now it’s an 88-cube Shovel running S&S three and five eighth inch barrels, 10.8:1 compression pistons, it has Evolution chrome-moly flywheels (that they only made for two years), you’ll also notice that it’s running an Evolution oiling system that pumps the oil up through the pushrods, instead of through a line in the standard Shovel configuration. It also has S&S roller rockers, a custom S&S ground camshaft …” Steve pauses. “Pretty much everything you can do to a that motor has been done to it.”

“What sort of power does it make?” I asked.

“It hasn’t been on the dyno, but I’d estimate it’s making around 100 horses.” He grins again. “And it’s a very lightweight Harley, well under 200kg … so it goes pretty good … yeah … pretty good.”

The Ignition is a Morris M5 and was the first one sold in Australia. “It’s the Billet one, which I paid a lot of money for, it runs points and coil on the magneto.” 

Steven made the custom exhaust system in-house and it’s fed by a Mikuni 42mm HSR “Which I painted as well. The manifolds are Mikuni from T.D. Hatricks.”

Steven proudly notes that he did all the paint on the bike himself, “It was a raw metal so I painted it with Harley textured paint.”

“They are beautiful looking heads,” I commented.

Steven grins again, “They really are. They are 66 generator Shovel Heads. They are the nicest shape rocker boxes. Again, they were done up by Ollie and they have black diamond valves, S&S Roller rockets, the barrels, and a heap of other performance components. It goes really well.”

The gearbox is a 1984 4-speed castle top out of the first Softail Standard. It has a long main shaft and they are pretty rare to find these days. A lot of builders run ratchet tops, but I’ve never had any trouble with this castle, and it selects gears a lot better that a lot of ratchets.” As he points to the bike.

“Dave this thing when we go for a ride, it’s easy to select, and the ratchets are so sloppy, while this unit is tight.” I took notice when we headed out for the photo shoot. He was right ¬¬– it was impressive. 

“It’s a 3-inch BDL Primary and chain final drive. While the forward controls are from Speed Dealer customs. I really liked the look of them, and then it has a Jag oil cooler that I got from Rollies too.”

Then we talked about the chassis. 

“I bought the frame in from America as well. Harry at Harry’s Bikes in Brisbane helped there. It’s a Paughco frame that didn’t originally look like it does now – I changed it up somewhat, cut and modified it to make it individual. I guess you could say that ‘Indian Larry is my, kind-of hero – so I wanted that look and tried to emulate his style. I fact when I started with this build, I thought ‘I’m going to black it all out’ – and they beat me to the punch and released their murdered-out shovel a month before I finished this one! I didn’t even know they were building it. But anyway, this is my interpretation and I’m happy with it.”

The headlight is from an early model Breakout while the braided lines and handlebars came from Rollies. It has a Performance Machine master cylinder and controls that are internally plumbed with an Exile Cycle hidden throttle. All of that sits on Roland Sands risers.

The setup gives an incredibly clean and uncluttered look to the front end. The line of the bike is also complimented by the Paucho fuel tank that Steven modified to suit. All the pin striping and paint was done in-house. The saddle is also his own fabrication, “But it needs to be re-done. It will eventually have a much nicer black leather seat.”

The front end is from a 2011 Sportster that he painted and fully rebuilt. The wheels are also custom built. The front is a Sportster Yoyo hub with stainless spokes laced to a 21” Wide Glide black rim, it runs the Sportster front disc brake as well. The rear wheel hub is from a 2013 Softail Slim with stainless spokes laced to a 5.5” rim from Rollies and that was powder coated gloss black as well.

At which point I suggested that we should head out a get a few photos. 

The first things to impress out on the road was that throughout the photo shoot the bike started first kick every time. Then, when it did spring into life it had that unmistakable Shovel sound, but with all the performance improvements it sounded like even sweeter honey. Loud honey, but sweet nonetheless. When he did give it a handful it really took off in a hurry.

The gear changes were reliable, and its road presence and presentation were exactly what attracted us to the bike when we first saw it.

Steven calls the shop the Sugar Shack for good reason. It is the house of some sweet rides.

General

 1976 FXE

Owner: Steven Hughes

Make: Harley

Model: Super glide 

Year: 1976

Engine: Shovelhead

Cases: 76 Shovelhead

Crank: Chrome molly Evo 

Conrods: S&S

Barrels: s&s 3 5/8

Capacity: 88 cube

Pistons: s&s

Compression Ratio: 10.8;1

Heads: harley

Cam: custom S&S

Valves: black diamond

Tappets & Valve Springs: S&S

Manifold: Mukni 

Oil Pump: S&S hi vol

Estimated Power: 100hp

Maximum Revs: 6200

Engine Management: Morris Mag

Carburettor: Mikuni 42hsr

Air Cleaner: custom

Exhaust: custom

Transmission: Castle top H-D

Gearbox

Gears: Andrews

Type

Clutch: BDL

Primary Drive: BDL

Final Drive: Chain

Frame: Paughco

Brakes - Front Disc Sportster

Brakes - Rear Disc Softail Slim

Brakes - Front Caliper Sportster

Brakes - Rear Caliper Softail Slim

Suspension: nil

Front: sporty

Wheels & Tyres

Front: Sporty yoyo hub laced in to 21’’

Rear: Slim hub laced into custom 5.5 rim

Tyre F: Avon

Tyre R: Avon

Controls: Speed Dealer / Performance Machine 

Master Cylinder - Brake: Performance Machine

Mirrors: Speed Dealer

Fwd Controls: Speed Dealer

Pegs: Speed Dealer 

Fuel Tank: Paucho

Painter: Steven Hughes

Zane's Shovelhead Chopper

That 70’s Show
Zane’s wild chopper raises the bars.

We first got to know Zane from his work at Burleigh Bars. 

The high-quality handlebar maker is a long-time supporter of HEAVY DUTY and when we heard about the chopper their Sales Manager had built, naturally we wanted to find out more. A lot more. So we set up a meeting on a sunny Gold Coast Saturday to get the story first hand.

Walking into Zane’s workshop was like being a kid in a toy store - if that store had a 70’s biker film theme. 

There are several very interesting projects at various stages of completion and an array of parts, motors and components spread out around the walls, but pride of place was taken by a stunning, custom-built Harley-Davidson Shovelhead finished in candy purple. 

We sat down next to the classic beauty so I could ogle it as I asked the usual questions.

Framed Question

“I bought the frame ¬from a friend of mine’s housemate. I said I’m looking for a rigid frame, and she said, ‘I know a bloke who’s got one’, so I ended up picking up the frame and a mountain of parts, and it just kind-of took off from there. That was about two and a half years ago.” He begins. 

“The frame was custom made some time in the eighties. Nobody can tell me exactly who built it, or where it came from, but it’s just got the perfect line. It’s a bit longer than a factory rigid, it’s more up and out, but it’s got that straight-leg look that I wanted. That ’57 Panhead kind of stance.” He said with the conviction of a true expert.

“I originally planned to put my Panhead motor in it, but it wasn’t right. The Pan needs to be in a Panhead frame, so the next step was to find a motor. And it came to me in quite a bizarre fashion. A bloke just walked into work and asked, ‘Do you know anyone who wants to buy an 80-cube Shovel motor?’” He laughs, “… Well, as a matter of fact!”

“So I picked up the motor, got the gearbox from Stuart Henry Motorcycles and it was all starting to come together. I got the oil tank at a swap meet for $70, and everything else kind-of fell into my lap. You know, when I build choppers it’s almost organic. I set out with a rough idea of what I want to build …  and the end result is often vastly different. 

When I first got the motor, the previous owner said it was a nightmare. But I looked it up and down and couldn’t see that I was going to have a problem with it. I put new points in it instead of the electronic ignition that was on it. I like points. They ran that way for decades … it started on about the fourth kick and ran really sweetly from then on.

One Concept

That’s one of the concepts for this bike. If anything did go wrong, I could fix it on the side of the road. The tool bag has spare plugs, points and there are only about five Allen keys and three spanners needed to pull the whole bike down. I wanted to keep it super-simple to fix.

From there I freshened up the paint on the motor and installed the S&S Carby. Apart from the cam she’s just a standard 80-cube Shovelhead. It’s a 1984 FLH motor that came out of a Police bike. You can tell that by the way the engine number has been replaced with 4 stars on the casting. 

Which I kinda dig, with all that Cop history, now it’s in a nasty chopper! 

The extra chrome was already done as it had spent some time in a 90’s show chopper as well. I did a little bit of cleaning up on the lifter block, the pushrod tubes and the pump. I had to clean up a lot of overspray to get it looking the way it does now.

The air filter came off another one of my bikes that I got sick of not being able to ride in the rain, but as I have no plan to use this one in the wet, it’s too sketchy, this filter works perfectly.

Another thing that I’m really pleased with is the Revetch Ratchet-top 4-speed gearbox. It selects neutral easily, even when stopped, and is as solid as a rock considering its running through a standard Shovel dry-run clutch. 

Things with this build just naturally found their way to me. The pipes popped up on Ebay and were a bargain at $70 too.” They sound fantastic, not too lout, just right: deep and throaty. 

“The thing is I buy vintage Harley parts when I find them, I’ve got a problem.” And he grins again. “I’ve got a mountain of parts in stock under the house, I just collect things. The gas tank for example was going to be on another build, but it didn’t work looks-wise. So I took off the second filler cap and cleaned it up and it worked really well on this frame. It all just came together.”

Bar work

“The 18” bars were a set that Adam bent up at work. He made one set for a customer, who really wanted the vee-style apehanger. 

If we’re going to bend up a specific set of handlebars, we’ll make two or three sets. 

So, they were sitting on the shelf at work and I kept looking at them, thinking ‘Yeah they have got to go on this bike’. They just work to a tee. The line is perfect. They give it that 70’s David Mann style of chopper look.

Then the front end came to me on a bike I bought for parts. Originally, I was going to go with a six-inch-over Springer, but it turned out they were bent, so rather than try and fix them I smacked this set, from an ’84 Tourer, on it and it rides great. They probably look the part better than the springer too.”

To stop or not

“At first it had a twin disc brake setup, but the callipers and discs were all mismatched and the brakes dragged. I always planned to run this bike without a front brake, but after I’ve ridden it for a while, I’ve changed my mind. 

With the foot clutch, the hand shift and no front brake … well, any set of traffic lights with a slight incline or decline is … fairly entertaining.” He said with considerable understatement. 

That was particularly evident after I watched him wrestle with the bike at the lights as we made our way out to the ensuing photo shoot. 

“Yeah, the first time I rode it I bumped into a truck! But nothing bad has happened since.” More grins.

“The wheels are from a WLA. It’s an 18” on the back, laced to an early Shovel drum brake rear end with sealed bearings. I went with sealed because I wanted this bike to be able to be ridden fair distances. 

The front wheel came with the front end I bought. It’s an early Evo twin disc hub, but it’s laced to an alloy rim with stainless spokes. Both wheels are shod with Avon Speedmaster tyres, because they look right. 

It’s so easy to mess up the look of a Chopper with the wrong tyres. I’ve got 18psi in the rear at the moment. I learned the hard way about running high pressures on a rigid. It doesn’t corner as well with the lower pressures, but it definitely rides a lot softer.”

Sculpted Chain

I asked about the unique Sissy Bar? 

“I had a lot of help there from the boys at work. Jez, Dave, Adam, Kurtzo, as well as Jacob our polisher. I wanted to use a lot of stainless because that’s what we do, day to day, at Burleigh Bars. 

Working there really opened my eyes to what you can do with stainless - how strong it is and how beautifully it polishes. 

So we went with 316 stainless chain, made a jig up on an old palette and it took Jez days to weld it, and I mean days, but the end result is phenomenal. 

Dave made the chain gear shift too. I also went with 316 stainless chain on the shift linkage as well, but it’s not welded.

The seat came from a friend, it’s the perfect line, it doesn’t do a lot to keep you in it, but it looks awesome.”

Then we talked about the controls and electrics. “I made the mid pegs, it’s a standard FLH brake pedal, all the brake lines were made by Goodrich Brakes on the Sunshine Coast. It’s a standard Panhead master cylinder, Chopperware foot clutch, I really like the Chopperware components, the rear fender is by them as well. 

I wired the bike front to back, used all Pan head style cloth covered wire, got the regulator off Ebay, went with the standard Shovel charging system and used the S&S Super E Carburettor for simplicity of starting.”

To Ride

Which lead to the next obvious question: what’s it like to ride after you do start it?

“Not bad, it sits on the road really solidly. It was always a concern not knowing if the frame was actually straight, and I had planned to put it on a jig, but the first time I rode it allayed any concerns, it tracks beautifully.  Thank goodness!”

Speaking of beautiful, I asked about the paint?

“That was done by JMS Refinishing in Burleigh Heads, it’s a Candy Purple over a black base coat and it really pops in the sun yet it looks so deep you could dive into it in the dark. Originally, I wanted to add some pinstriping, but I decided it just doesn’t need it. It’s right the way it is.”

And that’s something of an understatement. It most certainly is just right. A real credit to the man.

What is even more amazing is that the build cost around $6,500. That doesn’t account for the hours Zane spent building a masterpiece. But it’s a remarkable achievement for that sort of cost. 

Like something from the 70’s.