More EBAY rant!

I've said it before but this is ridiculous...out of 49 items listed today as AEE exactly ONE is!!!!!!
Buyer beware please, and to all of you out there trading on AEE's good name go the hell away.

Street Digger

This innovative chopper was built after both Dave Brackett and I left AEE. As you can see they threw everything at it, AEE parts, supercharger, digger style body and so on. As you can see in the picture Lenny our parts manager and friend (standing next to Rose McMullen) look shighly skeptical. he was right. As you will see in the pictures somehow the rear disc got chromed. Tom hops on for the first ride, and since he wasn't known for being discrete, he hammers this blown 74....grabs for the brake and nothing! that chrome disc didn't slow him at all, he proceeded across the street and plowed up the field according to Lenny! The location of this AEE chopper is unknown like all of the rest except for Big Twin which is undergoing a very slow restoration.

Sportster tanks from AEE

AEE only sold two different Sportster tanks and only both styles at the same time for a short while. This picture is from the Summer 1971 catalog and shows both types. We had just added the white gel tank with the vertical tabs (the other tank disappeared after this) and kept it in the catalog for a few years. It was the only fibergalss tank we had other than a skull tank for a short while and later a coffin tank for a while. We always had both the banana and peanut tanks in steel (some were Wassell tanks but most were knock off's from Hap Jones, Rocky and others that made them). And of course the famous wing tank which we never called that! It was a "custom contour tank". I never was a fan of the fibergalss sportster tank but Lenny our parts manager ran one on his ex-cop shovelhead and it seemed to work well plus it had a killer paint job on it.

flying update

This has nothing to do with AEE but it is a cool piece of machinery and I had a blast so thought I'd share....nice long flight the length of the northern part of the SF Bay. Then back and did some aerobatics over the wine country...I caught 2 loops and a roll on the video then I couldn' t hang on to the camera any more...enjoy, I sure did!
Oh, its a 1942 Stearman biplane.....

Going flying!

Though I am not a pilot I love to fly and today I am going up in a mid1930's Stearman biplane (open cockpit of course). Besides cruising around the northern part of the Bay Area and the wine country I will be doing aerobatics, loops, rolls, hammerhead and cuban 8.....Yeah! so no post today!

AEE finned dishpans

This is an interesting piece I came across....this is an ad from the very early days of AEE Choppers. It shows their name as AEE Choppers Unlimited. The blacked out area shows who the actual producer of these items were with AEE distributing them. the name looks like Custom Cycle Engineering, Gardena, CA.
At some point there was a lawsuit between Tom McMullen the founder and whoever came up with the finned panhead covers. We always sold them but ours had been modified (you can see them in the catalogs), I presume to get around the design by the guy that sued Tom. At any rate here is another long lost piece of AEE history:

AEE - We Ride What We Sell

Where it started for me

This is me at the whopping age of one year sitting on my dad's motorcycle, that's him and my older sister behind me. This is the only shot of this particular bike. A few years later my dad couldn't justify the expense of owning motorcycles and raising a fmaily on a carpenters wage. Later in life he did by a couple Honda's, a 160 and 350, until he wrecked the 350 and broke his leg. He had owned a variety of bikes along the way including a Henderson. Picture taken June 1953.

sorry for no posts

Due to family illness and now death in family I have been very busy away from my beloved AEE. Mosr coming soon for you fans!

Dave Brackett's Honda 750 dragster found!

Dave Brackett, AEE's famous designer and engineer has built many vehicles over the years. When Dave had his own chassis company he teamed up with Action Fours (famous Honda engine builders and racers) to build a Honda 750 rear engined dragster. As the decades went by it was lost to time.....until now. A gentleman named Kenneth Bell and his son Kurtis found it beside a barn in Temecula,CA. Their intent is to restore it to original configuration. Here is a picture of Dave with it and how the chassis looked when found:

AEE brake min drum

Here are a couple shots of an unmolested AEE mini brake drum. As you can see the chrome has held up incredibly well. You can see the bronze bushing on the pivot side of the backing plate really well.This is a 36 hole drum which was popular for smaller wheels such as a 16 or 17". This brake was quite simple in its operation and would provide a bit of braking power but the reality is it was only made to meet the letter of the law. Even though its in good condition the drum itself is going to get rechromed, new bearings (by the way there is a spacer between the two bearings inside).  The brake is quite heavy as it was made from ductile iron.

New wing tank!

AEE invented the wing tank (actually Dave Brackett did for AEE on the very first chopper he ever built for us....a Honda 350 named "REALLY"). Over the years many have tried to copy or enlarge upon it but did it pretty badly, the proportions were just never right. Now Scott Smith of  Smith Motor Works has come up with a viable alternative, no, it's not an original AEE tank but it is very damned nice. In particular I like that he put the filler up one side so you can get some more gas in! Looks like a very high quality piece....go check it out as he has other tanks too:   http://www.smith-mw.com/

Albums

Tom's famous 32 ford roadster was on the cover of a number of record albums (for you youngsters albums were big black plastic things that spin and make noise)...one sick bad ass roadster:

narrow is the way!

I have been on vacation for 10 days...so back at it with some AEE goodness.....
Here is how narrow an AEE square glide on an AEE frame with AEE sissy bar is......very narrow!
The way it's supposed to be.

some AEE parts laying around my house.....

Here are some AEE parts I have. I was rearranging the AEE archive and thought I'd share a shot or two.......I also am not going to be able to post for about 10 days or so...hang in there back with more soon!

Last page 1975 dealer catalog

A page full of mostly handlebars. Some of them we always produced a couple of these were purchased. What is interesting is the "direct" mount bars, common now but not back then, a new thing. The folding pegs were a good idea but came far too late to help AEE survive. Basically the moment had passed, growth was waning in the chopper world by 75. The loss of Street chopper to help promote the AEE products was huge loss too. The combination of the splitting of the businesses between Tom and Rose, the interest waning and the loss of a promotional mouthpiece all helped signal the end for AEE. I'd also suggest that the loss of Dave Brackett designing and building parts and prototypes (bikes and parts) had a long term effect.

Page 7 1975 dealer catalog

This page has a a few odd items much like the others. The tach and speedos were purchased items. The Traveler seat was for the AEE softail that we can find no record of sales so doubtful any of the seats got sold. Only pictures are of the prototype seat on the softail bike. The swing arm K and Q seat and the solo pad set for swing arm were produced in small quantities. I don't think anyone has ever seen one of the t-shirts, looks like a Dave Bell (he recently passed) picture. When I was at AEE we sold t-shirts and sweatshirts but not many and a different design. Remember 40 plus years ago t-shirts weren't that big of deal compared to now.

T

Page 6 1975 dealer catalog

This page has a few interesting things. First up is a Hayden oil cooler, a straight off the shelf item you could buy anywhere. The Streamliner gas tank and wedge oil tank never made it past prototype and in to production near as anyone can tell. The AEE Sportster oil tank we sold some of but not many, great fit on our frame though. One of the genius things AEE did (Dave Brackett thought it up) was using a square center post. WAY easy to mount to square tube instead of round.

45 pipes

These pipes for an HD 45 recently sold on Ebay, thought everyone would like to see how good AEE chrome was....40 years later!

Page 5 1975 dealer catalog

A very odd page, literally everything on this page was purchased from vendors. Nothing was made by AEE. so yes, AEE may have sold some pike nuts right at the end but we didn't make them.