I made a little video of the WLA Bobber that I can share....

Bye-Bye Buell

 Yup, I sold her. The 2000 Buell M2 Cyclone has a new owner in Queens, NY. This was the last pic I took of her...

Oh Yeah

Is it perfect? Well, no it is not. Is it the Springer Softail I always wanted? Hell Yeah. My 1991 Harley Davidson FXSTS has been updated. I ditched the dated and dented blue tins for classic tuxedo black with my favorite Harley Davidson tank badges of all time. The 1961-'62 FL badges that my pal Gonzo used to have on his old panhead.

Back to Black

I've been waiting for a nice enough day to paint, and this weekend I finally got one. A few coats of black base coat from the Chevelle, and some Chromaclear, and viola...the '91 Springer is now black. Of course I had dust and runs, and sags, but another day of sanding and polishing took 98% of those out. It's not perfect, but very nice...and the paint job was FREE.

2K Today

 I worked the metal with the painless glue puller and hammers, so the filler I applied was almost see-through after I sanded it down. I wanted to take advantage of the nice day, and get some epoxy primer shot on the dash and a few small parts, then get some 2K high-build primer on the tanks and fenders too. Next up... block sanding. I hope I don't have to respray any more 2K, cause I'm out.

Maybe no tailgate mod...

So I was looking under the bed (of the truck, not in my room) and seeing just what I needed to beef up in order to hold the weight of the bike in the 3100 truck bed. I only installed a few horizontal braces when I made the wood bed, and need to make 4 more additional steel brackets as soon as I can get the material and drill the holes. Then I also stumbled across this pic of a 3100 with the tailgate just down, and thought that would work too. I ordered my ramp ends, but they were on back order, so for now I'll just continue to ponder the idea.

3100 Tailgate Mod

The motorcycles do not fit in the small bed of my '52 Chevrolet 3100 pickup, but I was thinking that if I modified the tailgate, I could work out a solution. Well, look what I found! Some other genius also had the same idea back a few years ago, and since my tailgate isn't perfect anyway, AND a new one is less than $200 from Brothers, I might try this little mod.

My thought is that now I could take the truck out to a few shows or cruise nights with the '42 WLA in the back, which would look cool, and I could save on some much needed garage space too! If I ever needed to haul my bike to a show or a new home, that was an added bonus as well. I asked my friend Cathy if maybe she could help me letter the tailgate, she is a great artist.
The drawbacks would be that I need to make some ramps that I can keep in the bed too, and that I would also need to take the bike out every time I need to refuel the truck, as the gas tank is under the bed, and it lifts up with the linear actuators. I'm going to give this some thought for a few days before I make a decision.

Garage Cleaning

 I guess technically I didn't clean the garage, but I did take everything out and sweep the floor. The real goal of this "spring cleaning" effort was to  fuel up the flathead, get it running, and adjust the new clutch that I installed over the winter. Well the bike started right up (posted a video on Facebook here) but then I needed to adjust the primary chain (here) to take out some slack. This of course required a rear chain adjustment too after that. I pulled the carb bowl off and cleaned the inside with some carb cleaner, then took her for a little ride... and all was great. Threw the primary cover back on her, and she is ready for another year of fun, as soon as we can start that.

Butter Wet Wax

Yesterday, after a long and hard day of yard work, I gave the Camaro a quick wash with the new products I received for Christmas. The new sud-gun was pretty cool, and then I hit the car with the clay bar. After, I tried my new Butter Wet Wax from Chemical Guys on the hood (although I should have tried the polish first) and man was that smoooothe stuff. We will see how long it last and if it beads up well.

Rendering

I made a quick rendering of the plan for the '91 Springer. The photo was from the first day I bought it, so it still had the wrong headlight, broken ignition and no front shock on the springer. I was going to make the render real nice, and originally wanted to do a two-tone orange and black style just like the stock paint. I am having difficulty finding tank decals that I like, and to be honest, I don't know if all the work would be worth it.

So, I just blacked it out and dropped a '61 FL tank badge on the tank... and I think I like it that way. I may even still have some black paint left over from the Chevelle or Sky, that would be awesome. The front orange reflector is already gone, and I'll probably lose the back fender reflectors too. Zach says to put a little orange accent somewhere, but it hasn't yet come to me.

Snappy Throttle

I watched a video on YouTube about how to make a pres to push in the exhaust gaskets with just a few washers and a bolt, and  thought "I have that stuff here". So, I went into the garage late one evening to check, and not only did I have the parts, I made the tool and installed the exhaust too.

I also noticed that the throttle wasn't snapping closed, and as I figured, the return cable was snapped. So a new set of throttle cables was ordered and installed. The next plan is to get another test ride in, check the new throttle and exhaust, and then take it to Superior for new neck bearings.

Exhausting

Three miles... that's as far as I could ride this thing with the LAF pipes on it. Literally, around the block a few times and I never even made it to the highway. POP, BANG, POP, POP... it felt like the old Batman TV show. There was no way I could keep those pipes on. I immediately pulled them off and started cleaning and prepping the stock pipes with the Screaming Eagle slip on mufflers. I picked up some exhaust gaskets (there were not any on it before with the LAF pipes, ughh) and a new/used bracket from Joe at Superior Cycle again.

Tonight I went outside just to check if I could use the old washer/bolt/tool trick to seat the gaskets, and it went so well I put the entire exhaust on! I then pulled the plugs, and of course they were just finger tight in the heads. WTF!
I was going to stop at Harley tomorrow and get new ones, then I remembered that the bike came with some brand new Autolite Extreme Sport Iridium XS65 plugs. Just got to gap them, install them and fire it up. I can't wait to hear how it sounds.

Carb Rebuild

I noticed that the fuel was coming out of the overflow occasionally if I left the petcock on with the bike not running. It didn't happen all the time, which is good, because that just meant the carb was dirty and there was some junk in the float seat. If the float was bad and sinking then it wouldn't float anymore, and the fuel would keep coming out.

I bought a James rebuild kit, got a spare parts carb from Bill, and took a dive into it. Oh yeah, she was filthy inside and out. After I took everything apart and cleaned the carb, I installed a new/slightly used Springer air cleaner that I picked up at the Cheap Thrills show for only $5!!! That was a score for sure.

 

Hideous Turn Signals

Now that you can see the nice chrome headlight, you may notice those oval-shaped turn signals. What were they thinking? BTW, did you notice the nice chrome front shock and HD decal? The decal makes the front end in my opinion.

I paid a visit to my pal Joe at Superior Cycles in Edison for a few parts, including a new ignition, some missing hardware and some stock turn signal lights for the front end.

I removed the right tank so that I could wire the signals to the correct molex connectors hiding under there, and after an hour of pulling pins and re-wiring.. I now have some beautiful round turn signals for the front. I also installed a front turn signal relocating bracket on each side so that they wouldn't hit the tanks.

While I was at it, I installed the new HD ignition switch (with a new set of keys!), put the correct bulb in for the high beam indicator, and made a few tweaks to other parts as I try to take the bad parts of the 90's out and just get back to a classic bike. The license plate bracket was big enough for a car plate, so I cut it down and made it the size for a motorcycle plate... way better. I gave her an oil change, then noticed that the float sticks occasionally if I leave the fuel petcock on and it isn't running. I ordered some new gaskets for the CV carb, and that will be the next installment.

Chrome Headlight

The black headlight was not unattractive, it just didn't go with a chrome front end. I gave it to my brother-in-law for his blacked out springer...it should be perfect for that one.

The mounting hole had been drilled out by the previous owner (gee, thanks), so I needed to drill, tap and install a heli-coil just so that I could put the stock bracket back in for the Chrome headlight. No, I didn't have it... and yes, I had to re-wire the headlight back to the stock connector. The funny thing is that with that black headlight bracket installed by the previous owner, there was no way to mount the front shock back in due to the limited space at the top shock mount now being occupied by the aftermarket headlight mount.

I'll post a pic of the chrome headlight in my next post, with the story of the replacement of the hideous turn signals. Stay tuned.

'91 Springer Softail FXSTS

 
The shop is packed full, hardly any room to work... so just add another one to the mix, right? I picked up a '91 Springer Softail FXSTS which needed a little love. This model is the same as my old pal George had back when I first started riding (after I got married). It was my favorite with that chrome springer front end, and my son-in-law and his father each have one too. It was a good deal, so I couldn't pass it up.

It came with a ton of extra stock/aftermarket parts, just in case I didn't like the seat of LAF pipes. The most obvious first fix was the need of a new front shock for the Springer (it had been removed and was no longer any good), so I ordered a new one from HD. The previous owner started to "black-out" some chrome, so that also had to be corrected. Luckily there were a few Chrome parts in the boxes, including a chrome headlight... but how to install it would be a job.