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.