AEE Choppers: January 2012

Monday, January 30, 2012

Manifold found!

Got one on the way and its even chrome! What we sold to put Weber carbs on Ironhead Sportsters. Ours eventually did not have MPD (Magnusson performance Div) on them but were plain. Jerry magnuson also provided the blower we had on our kit bike later in it's life.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

AEE Square glide triple tree

We recently discovered that the triple tree had an inherent weakness to them which may explain why most of them have a bent top plate. The square leg holes do not and can not pinch the legs hard neough to hold them in place as well as they should. hence the legs transmitted movement to the top plate bending it. We added a stiffener under the top plate (after straightening the top plate). I discovered this problem but Dave Brackett our friend and AEE engineer figured out why it was doing it and the fix for it.

Manifold needed

I normally would not put up a post like this but I'm getting hard up. Need a Ironhead to Weber side draft carb manifold like this one by MPD. It sticks straight out from the engine as opposed to pointing forward. If you have one I'm buying...polished or chrome is even better!

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Video of the AEE Choppers Corvair Trike!

This is a clip from the 1969 movie The Babysitter. It was a cheap quasi biker film. In this clip Tom McMullen is aboard the famous Oakland Roadster show winning Corvair Trike. If you watch close you will see the chopper that started AEE Choppers parked in front of the AEE shop, the equally famous Mindbender. I have searched for a number of years for this clip so I hope you enjoy!

Thursday, January 19, 2012

find AEE

here is some fun....Google map 730 Monroe Way, Placentia, CA.
The stick pin will be stuck in to the last AEE location. That buildings is one of 4 we had (the four that are all joined together). The main building held our showroom, offices and parts warehouse, building just below this one was our warehouse and where we kept the cats, Spoke and Cibie (cats as in mountain lions). First building to the right of the main building was our production/welding/assembly/machine shop. Building just below it was for Street Chopper and prototype department.
There were a few exceptions to this but in general that is the way it laid out.

You can do the same with the previous shop at 1420 Burton Place, Anaheim, CA and the original shop at 7931 Wittaker, Buena Park, CA. I worked at the last two locations but missed out on Wittaker!

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Love the smile......

A shot of our Sportster Kit Bike with one of the young ladies from the office on the back.....look at that smile!
This bike was more of a parts mule than any other bike we had. Many different seats, sissy bars, handle bars, mirrors and headlights etc. ended up on this chopper. It also ended up with multiple types of induction on it. Plus it was stone reliable....1970 electric start Sporty.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Dave Bell

Dave Bell did lots of cartoons for Street Chopper and does them for Street Rodder to this day. Lenny Cenotti our parts manager at AEE was fortunate enough to have Dave draw him a personal cartoon of Lenny riding. According to Lenny one day Rose McMullen walked out and said "here is a package for you". In it was this drawing for Lenny. Enjoy a sidelight of the AEE years thanks to Lenny and Dave. Oh, and those cases of Coors are close to correct, Lenny and I polished off many a drink back in the day together! In fact at one point we were both so broke that Lenny invented a drink for us...he had an old bottle of Galliano liquor that had been sitting around looking cool gathering dust. We dumped that in a glass with ice and coke and we had an instant "Tall Cool Lenny".