An exceptional finished product for a first-time build
In a moment of weakness, Dale Marchand hit the “bid” button on an eBay auction for a pallet of parts, including a 1957 Harley-Davidson Panhead engine, transmission and springer fork, together with a 1974 Paughco frame, some hubs and rims and a handful of other odds and ends.
“I was at my cousin’s stag party and it was three or 4 o’clock in the morning when my friend Mark Schultz sent me a link to the eBay auction,” says Marchand. “It looked like a bike that had been built up in the 1970s and then torn apart quite a few years later, but I ended up buying it out of Virginia and had a pallet of parts shipped to me.”
There’s a First Time for Everything
Growing up in Fort McMurray, Alta., Marchand worked first in a tire shop and then in a heavy-transport company. At the latter job, he did a lot of fabricating and repaired a wide variety of equipment. As he says, in that industry, if you’re not trucking, then you’re fixing something. It’s also where he became a proficient welder using both TIG and torch equipment.
As mentioned, it was Marchand’s friend Mark Schultz who pointed out the eBay listing. Schultz is, according to Marchand, a biker and a builder. Because Marchand has done some welding for Schultz, he was spurred on by the builder to create his own custom motorcycle.
Taking Stock
“Once I had the pallet of parts, Mark was more than generous with his time to help me go through the items, piece by piece, so I’d have a better idea of what all I had,” Marchand says.
Included were old Harley-Davidson star hubs and some rims, but there were no brakes, linkages, fender, gas tank, headlight, handlebars, foot controls or distributor. There was an oil tank, but it was in rough shape. To start, Marchand wanted to make sure he had good bones for the basis of his build. He bead-blasted the rigid Paughco frame and inspected it for integrity. It was given a clean bill of health, and Marchand deemed it suitable for use.
“It’s not as glamorous as finding a real 1957 Harley-Davidson frame,” he says, “but it’s stamped as a 1974 Paughco and the frame does have some character. And, the head tube and the bearings looked good, and so did the rear axle plates.”
Good-Condition Driveline
Marchand gave the heads to George Welch of Welch Motorcycles in Edmonton. Welch treated the heads to new seats, valves and springs. All new gaskets went between the sealing faces of the cylinders and heads, and the chrome pushrod tubes and “pan” covers went back on.
The transmission is kick-start-only and was disassembled, cleaned and checked, then put back together with fresh seals. After the engine and transmission were rebuilt, both were placed in the frame to check for alignment. Thankfully, the engine output sprocket and the clutch chainwheel lined up and ran true.
He next mocked up the Harley-Davidson springer fork, making new bushings and installing fresh springs and shock to help keep the ride under control. For rolling stock, Marchand built up a set of wheels using the chrome 16-inch rims that came with the project and original Harley-Davidson hubs. To keep the motorcycle more “mechanical” in nature, he opted for drum brakes instead of modern disc brakes.
Finding a Theme
For example, the gas tank is an aftermarket Sportster item with a wide central rib. Marchand added a simple sight gauge to the lower back of the tank, so he could tell when he was getting low on fuel, and also installed a flush-mount gas cap. To carry that rib theme to the tail of the motorcycle, he found a six-inch-wide fender from Lowbrow Customs with a rib down its centre.
The fender didn’t hug the profile of the Pirelli tire quite the way Marchand envisioned, so he worked it over to get it tighter to the rubber and made fender stays using 3/8-inch steel rod. For the attachment points, he utilized ready-made parts from BungKing.com and TIG-welded the components together.
Ancillary Parts
For lights, Marchand found an aftermarket headlight that would be period correct for a 1957 Harley-Davidson. The taillight is a vintage microphone-style lamp from Seven Sins Choppers, while the signal lights are from Panic Cycles.
“I wanted signal lights for safety,” Marchand says. “I’m not an aggressive rider, and the lights make me more visible; plus, the taillight and the signal lights all help carry forward the ‘ribbed’ theme.”
For an exhaust system, Marchand bought aftermarket pipes that feature the flex-style shields over the headers from Drag Specialties. The tailpipe culminates in a small reverse-cone-style megaphone that was ordered online from a café racer webstore – Marchand can’t recall which one, however.
Two of the last pieces to be assembled in a mock-up state were the saddle from Rich Phillips Cycles and the handlebars. The bars were a kit of tubes from Bare Knuckle Choppers that Marchand adjusted to his liking, trimmed, and then welded together.
“When I was shopping for parts, my quest was to really try and find pieces that other builders might tend to look past,” he explains.
Vintage Colour Scheme
With the Panhead essentially “put together,” it was time for Marchand to think about a paint colour. He knew he didn’t want all black or something like cherry red. Instead, he drew inspiration from the 1950s when he paused to take a good look at the colour on the kitchen cabinets in his mid-century cabin. Finished in a pastel green, the colour captured his imagination. A friend laid down a custom-blended green, cream and black paint scheme on the fender, horseshoe oil tank and gas tank, which is topped off with Harley-Davidson badges meant for a 1961 motorcycle.
All other black parts, including the frame, fork and headlight bucket were powdercoated.
“It would be nice to say I customized every single component,” Marchand says, “but I was happy to pull together pieces from a number of different small shops and support the industry in that way.”
A Different Kind of Two Wheels
His Panhead was finished in late-summer 2012, and he had every intention of building another custom motorcycle, but Marchand wanted to create his own custom frame from scratch. When he searched for someone to teach him how, he discovered Paul Brodie’s bicycle-oriented Frame Building School 101 at the University of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia. This is when Marchand’s life changed direction, as he is now producing one-off, handcrafted, titanium-frame bicycles working under the name Rollingdale Cycles – look for him by that name on Instagram to view some of his creations.
Another custom motorcycle has yet to emerge from his workshop, but it’s great to witness the results of a moment-of-weakness purchase – one well-executed 1957 Panhead, and the creation of a successful home-based bicycle-building business.
