What year bike ?

[tireater]

What year...lets say you get an old harley and put an aftermarket motor in it...
Then you wreck it and put an aftermarket frame on it...
Then you change the rest of the stock parts to 'make it your own'...
What year do you claim for it...Does it just follow the origional registration no matter how much you change it...?

[ULTRADOG]

it would be the year of the frame. you would have to register the frame then put the motor# also on a builders title so if the frame is an 09 and the motor is an 01 the title would reflect 2009
                                                                                                     bill

[IBARider]

Now that depends how old?  My '69 sporty is registered by motor... there were no frame #s prior to very early 70's.

If I need to change out my left case, I'd be talking to my state DMV on how to go about it......

[gryphon]

As was pointed out, pre '70 HD's went by the engine number. In most states, if you changed motors, they would attach a VIN tag to the frame. Some would still list it by the original year and others would not. In Oregon it would give the original year with the addition of "assembled" in the appropriate box. That's what they did to me when I swapped frames. I was told that  a motor change would be handled the same if that's where the numbers were.

[ULTRADOG]

im thinking he is talking about buying an after market frame like from paugho and thru the years he used s&s cases to rebuild the bottom end or at least thats what im reading the new frame would come with aletter of origin that stated the year it was made ther for the bike would register from that year
we were buying older shovel motors and building choppers and all of them were registered as the year of the frame in good old florida u.s.a.

[HroadhogD1]

   I had a 1952 pan motor in a 1971 frame that was built in 1984.  Title said it was a 1984.  They let me put the plates on it as a 1952-cost me $35.00 to plate it, but I probably wouldn't get away with that now.  Then I went off to the insurance company.  They wanted to insure it as an 84.  I said if it gets stolen will you pay me off as an 84?  They decided to insure it as a 1971.   What a mess, but it worked, and was fairly cheap.