Thunder Roads Magazine of Oklahoma/Arkansas November 2017 | Page 18

FEATURES
MOON BIKE BUILDING
By Peter Ström /Sweden
My name is Peter Ström and I am 54 years old
from Stockholm, Sweden. I have a few bike-builds
behind me – I built my wife’s FXR trike, Sportster
chopper for myself, Sportster bobber with a lot of
engraving on it for my daughter. Every one of them
has been well appreciated and writing about it in a
big number of magazines around the world.
With this build I wanted a drag racing/hot rod
style! So it was obvious to ask Håkan at MOON
Sweden for help with parts.
Because let’s face it, what’s more associated
with drag racing/hot rod than MOON. The whole
bike is built around the legendary Aluminium
oil tank from MOON. I started the project with
an original Sportster -03 frame, but instead of
following everyone else and make it ridgid in the
back; I wanted to keep the shocks to have the old
school look.
The whole front frame was cut away, the back
frame I shorted 2” and the middle frame was made
so the MOON oil tank fi t in. A new front frame
got built from under the front motor mount to the
lowered back frame, everything to get a more fl uid
and straight line. The measurements of the bike are
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Thunder Roads Magazine of OK/AR
3” up, 39 degree rake; the fork is 10” over with a 5
degrees triple tree.
Instead of a lot of MOON-builds that is all
MOON-yellow I wanted the same effect as the oil
tank – brushed aluminium! So that started the hunt
of aluminium parts. The Gas tank is a stretched
sportster aluminium tank from Easy rider Japan; the
back fender is a tsunami from Lowbrows. The front
fairing is from Hippie killer garage that needed a
lot of grinding because of the bad quality of the
casting. Everything got wet-sanded to get the
brushed look.
The idea of the paint I got from the back of
the box that some of the MOON parts come in. To
get the racing style stronger and put some MOON-
yellow on it, I decided to make two yellow stripes
all the way through the bike that makes a frame
for the Mooneyes logos in the middle! The rest is
brushed aluminium with clear coat.
The wheel is original old 16 – 19” Mag wheels
from the 80’s. The center got painted in satin black
and the edges were grinded to get that brushed
look and aluminium sprocket in the back. The brake
and clutch leavers are from a Sportster -06, where