Back in the EVO game!

[John/1]

My first new Harley was a 1987 1/2  heritage softail FLSTC. She was bleu and cream a mid year special edition was a really nice bike. I paid 15,000 cnd for her really missed that bike
John

[david lee]

I hope it works out!
But now you bring up an interesting topic on trikes there. When you say they must be engineered, what is it that makes a stock Tri Glide unacceptable? How are they engineered to pass inspection?

that could be alright {factory built) but a converted solo or one built from nothing needs engineering.also an imported vehicle has to have the headlights or headlight replaced as americans drive or ride on the opposite side of the road which makes the hi beam face the wrong direction.then there could be emissions drama. thanks

[Hossamania]

I understand now. I forgot that the one you are looking at is "homebuilt", or shop built, not a factory machine.

[JW113]

Okey Dokey, the bike is home and in the garage. Was a bit of an adventure getting it home from Pacifica (to San Jose), about 50 miles, but hey isn't that what we do this for? The adventure?

So, let me tell a little about Pacifica, CA. It's the fog capital of the bay area, right on the Pacific Ocean, on the side of the Santa Cruz mountain. This set up is the ideal fog machine. People that live there (very expensive area btw) have a great view of the ocean. As long as you're STANDING in it! Anyway, today did not disappoint. Foggy and cold, maybe 40deg. Not ideal motorcycling weather, but not the point, read on.

So this bike is in what I'd call pretty good, but mechanically neglected condition. Nothing really major, but it's the little things that can put the adventure in a bike ride. For example, carb jetting. I don't know if the pilot jet is undersized, or is just partially plugged, but combine a VERY lean low speed jet with cold and fog and what do you get? POP-COUGH-POP-POP-POP-SNEEZE-SHUDDER.... you get the picture. It would run so-so OK with an accelerating throttle, but steady state, man alive that motor was not happy. Not to mention, I left the guy's place at 7:30am, right smack dab in the middle of rush hour. So a lot of stop/slow & go for quite a ways, the motor sounding a bag of Jiffy Pop in the microwave the whole time.

Maybe 10 miles later, I'm on the freeway and things calm down a little, since now it's got some throttle and pulling from the main jet. MOST of the time, still a POP-COUGH here and there. But then, rush hour, so quite a few back ups where I had to split lanes, and the lean pops were again going nuts. But, it made it home. Yay.

The other maintenance item is the clutch. Was pretty far out of adjustment, I had the lever against the bar and it would still creep at stop. Also would not very willing go into neutral, but used the "rev it up let off" technique, and could coax it into neutral most of the time.

So the one good piece of news. With rigid mount EVOs, aka Softails, the amount of perceived vibration tends to be all of the map. Some are like paint shakers, some are actually fairly smooth. My old '91 was the latter, fairly smooth. This one, to my delight, is probably the smoothest Softail I've ever been on. I had it up past 80, and the vibs were not objectionable at all. At 70 or below, smooth as glass. SMOOTHER than my TC Road King!

OK, picture time. Here it is as it landed in my driveway:

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Yes, loaded up with froo-froos and gee-gaws, and a little rough around the edges in places. Nothing I can handle. That dent in the top of the front fender is going to be a drag. I think a garage door came down on it, the visor on the headlight was all bent up as well.

So I spent maybe an hour doing some quick de-junking, and it already looks better. No more crash bar, handlebar tassels, visors, rear seat, luggage rack, or that really cool "Live to Ride" license plate frame.

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So either those white walls gotta go, or I need to get me a La CuCuRacha taco truck air horn. Eh, maybe not. Will get it some black Avons this weekend.

And one of the 'to do' items on my list was to put a 61T rear pulley and belt on it. I like that ratio for a freeway bike. In snooping around at the garage walls (my parts bin), I stumbled upon this:

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Wow, a 1-1/8" belt and 61T pulley! I think long ago I was going to fit a 150 rear tire to my '91 but never got around to it. Dang!

Will be a busy but fun weekend I think.

-JW

[Hossamania]

Nice find! Still an eye catching paint scheme.
Count on the pilot jet needing a good cleaning at the least, replacing at most. Really, the whole carb needs a good cleaning, a rebuild, and good to go.
Good luck, hope it's a good machine for you.

[david lee]

what she cost ?

[JW113]

Yes indeed, you got that right. Will pull it apart, see how it's jetted, and throw it in the ultrasonic tank. 25 years of who knows what has to have found a home in it, so need to clear that crap outta there.

Oh, and those Supertrapp mufflers. Yucky-poo!! Looks like a snake swallowed a watermelon. Man it kills me that my two favorite exhaust systems, Khrome-werks and Cycle Shack, are both gone. I can't find anybody that makes the old traditional looking basic dual shorties for Evo softails anymore. About all I can find is high dollar "custom chopper hot rod OCC" crap that would look ridiculous on a mostly stock bike. I think Paughco might still make something along those lines, will have another look.

I think sometime in the past somebody posted that someplace is still selling off old Cycle Shack NOS inventory. Anybody in the know about that?

thanks,
JW

[JW113]

Cost? $5K. Was the asking price on Craigslist, and I am not really the haggling type. It seemed fair to me.

-JW

[david lee]

Cost? $5K. Was the asking price on Craigslist, and I am not really the haggling type. It seemed fair to me.

-JW

no bargains like that in australia.probably around $13000.what you going to do with the front guard, should knockout easy but i cant see you useing as youve said before a rattle can for paint.will you flip it or keep it

[Breeze]

Nice find!  I'm not a whitewall fan either, except on a Heritage, and your color scheme seems to work well with them. Hell, wear them out.  As for the front fender, remove it and let a "paintless dent repair" guy try his hand at it. I've seen some good results.

[Deye76]

Very clean bike JW. Agree the wide white walls have to go.  Enjoy.

[72fl]

2nd on the paintless dent repair fender repai. Got a guy in Illinois that I have used and you can never tell where the dent WAS 

[JC 92FXRS]

Nice find! I'll disagree with one thing though, I think white walls look very good on the two-tone cream Heritages.
Cheers and have fun with her, Jeff

[JW113]

Hey I don't mean to be poopin' in anybody's pool over the white walls. Just not my thing. The rear one only has about 1K miles on it. You pay the postage, I'll mail 'em to ya!


Front fender: I already contacted "Dent Pro", he said dent too big, paint will crack. He clearly does not know about how HD used to lay down paint in the 90s, using the electro-static applied liquid process. It's like armor plating! Anyway I told him don't worry about that, just remove the dent. He says $300. Screw that, I had a guy in San Diego pull a dent out of my Indian's tank for $100. Will look for another paintless dent guy...

Flip it? HELL no!

-JW

[Beave]

Great find. Beautiful bike.  My first new HD was a 1986 1/2 FLST Red and Cream.  Beautiful and bulletproof.  She sent many a shovel rider shopping for an Evo. From the Arctic circle in Alaska to the mountains of Mexico that machine always rumbled on. I sure miss that bike.  Oh, wait I still have it, and it is still a great ride!  The stock crank went south at 206K and it's now a 93" and coming up on 300K.  The stock 3.34 gears kick ass.  If your Heritage cruises smooth at 80 mph why would you gear it up?  I tried it, made her feel like a slug and didn't help a damn thing so I switched it back.  Good luck.

[JC 92FXRS]

Hey I don't mean to be poopin' in anybody's pool over the white walls. Just not my thing. The rear one only has about 1K miles on it. You pay the postage, I'll mail 'em to ya!

-JW

Lol...not poopin' in my pool, just my thought on that style bike. Re: the offer...nope, whitewalls definitely won't do on my FXR 
Cheers, Jeff

[rageglide]

Congrats!   

I'll swing by later to check it out.  I'll look in my garage to see if I have a set of pythons or cycle shacks layin around, if so I'll bring em along. 

[Flhfxd]

Nice color. I always liked that combo. Agree...lose the Supertrapps. The white walls are a bit "out there" but they actually look better on that color combo bike than blacks. A bit of a throwback perhaps? IMHO that is. Leave em on it for a while and see if they "stick"?

[Hybredhog]

    Keep the stock geared belt & go for a 6 speed (I had a rev tech in my old '87), best thing I ever did, best of both worlds. You couldn't give me a rev-tech now, but they worked if the power out put was reasonable, but the ultimas ain't that bad for a entry level tranny. Yeah, Yeah, Baker's are the best.

   When they came out with the 61 tooth drive in 1993 (European spec.) for the states, they created a dawg with stock power, not to mention hammer the lower end.

[JW113]

Yes, it does OK at 80mph. But with the taller gearing, will feel like 70 when doing 80. They're just smoother if you can keep the cruising speed RPM to 3000. Also, for just general riding, 1st gear is purt near useless, you're shifting to 2nd at 15 mph. I get it, for better acceleration, 3.37 is better, but that's not what I need this bike for. And  certainly one of the beauties of the EVO platform, swapping the rear pulley and belt is a cake walk. If the 61T don't work out, no big deal to change to a 65T or back to 70T. I just ain't that worried about it.

61T (2.92:1) was standard gearing for 1993. In '94, it was about the same, 2.94:1 with a 65T rear pulley and the new primary drive ratio, right? Can't remember for sure, but at some point they stabilized on 3.16:1.

Yeah Bob, come on by! Exhaust pipes would be awesome. Don't happen to have a Heritage seat do ya?


see ya,
JW

[rageglide]

'94 had 3.15 final drive and is the year they regeared the inner primary, back to 70T pulley.   95+ as I recall got a 65T and final drive was 2.93.   Baggers like your RK and my '05 Road Glide had 3.15:1.  New baggers are even taller than the 2.93 softail ratio.

I do have a heritage seat somewhere.  But you already have one, why do you need another?

[JW113]

The one that came with it is kinda shot, and I'm not sure it's a HD seat. It sat kinda weird, has no side brackets, and the pillion has "Saddleman" on it. I called HD this a.m. looking for one, none in stock anywhere. I think they make an alternate version, will check that out.

-JW

[david lee]

being a panelbeater if anyone can knock that dent out without cracking the paint is worth every cent he charges

[JW113]

OK, so a little progress today and then a brick wall.

I pulled the wheels and had some Avon Cobras mounted, and went on a parts shopping spree. Since I had the wheels off, I figured what an ideal time to pull the primary and swap the 70T rear pulley and belt for the 61T that I have. All went well until I tried to get the compensator nut off. Holy crap, I have NEVER had a problem getting the comp nut off on anything. Except now. This freaking thing is so tight, or so overloaded with red loctite, that it feels welding on. I was using my 2 foot SnapOn breaker bar, with a shovelhead fork tube as a cheater, and I swear it was going to snap the breaker bar. I was giving it all I had, and it would not budge.

So I guess the next step is to fire up the oxy-acetylene and get it hotter then hell, and give it another try. Will likely swing by Harbor Fright and see what the largest 3/4 drive breaker bar they have also.

Why oh why do people do this to mechanical things?

On the lighter side...

I have a repair bill that the previous owner gave me, to show how it had been "maintained". He had it trailered to Dudley-Perkins Harley-Davidson (can I say that?), with a nail in the rear tire. He also complained that the rear break felt soft, and that the oil smelled 'gassy'. And it had also spewed out a bunch of oil one time when he fired it up. (this guy did not put hardly 1000 miles in 5 year on the bike)

So what did Dudley do? Sell him a new rear tire (existing one had 3500 miles on it), sell him a new carburetor to fix the gas getting into the oil, and replace the oil pump for the oil spew at start up. OK, so do any of you buy that?

Rear tire: hot patch the tire from the insie, replace the tube. DONE
Clean the carb, replace the float needle. DONE
Pull the oil pump check valve spring and ball bearing, clean the parts, give the ball a tap, re-assembly. DONE

I'm telling ya, the guy that owned this bike before me is the quintessential target market for the HD motor company. Big desire to "live to ride", at least down to the country club to show his golfing pals he's now a "biker", but no mechanical aptitude what-so-ever, so that the HD dealerships can mint money by selling him parts and service he doesn't really need.

And then there is me. Gotta get than damn compensator nut off.


-JW

[rageglide]

Live to Pay, Pay to Live. The Auto and Moto industry makes more money on "fries" off these customers.   Exactly why I refuse to pay a dealer to do *anything*. I swear Corporate auto and moto service industries are just about the most corrupt services ever.


I was thinkin heat... and/or impact.   Not like you (and I) haven't rattled on a crank many times over the years.