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[ducpainter]

Good thing I wasn’t eating when I looked at that.

You don't like it?

[Speeddog]

Just get it wet and throw on the flake by the handful.

Then cover it in clear.

Nothing to it.

[Duck-Stew]

You don't like it?

Not especially, no. 

[ducpainter]

Different strokes.

You probably wouldn't like Dave's bike either.

[Speedbag]

I like mine better.  

What did the assembled bike look like?

[Speedbag]

Saturday was The Big Day, the first time my butt has been on this thing since 2006. Runs fantastic. Add a defunct oil pressure gauge to the list of little stuff to fix, along with new throttle and clutch cables. But for the rest of the riding season, it's all good to go until it's time to pull the rear fender off for paint this fall.

I forgot how snotty the cam was that I put in it.  

Another thing that needs to change are the bar risers. I know I have a set buried in the attic that have a little pullback to them. Funny how my back doesn't like that riding position anymore 25 years later, although some of it seems to be related to the same phenomenon that 'shrank' my favorite old leather jacket.  





Since I got the bike back, I've been on the lookout for a possible keychain for it. The guy that had it had a cheesy hard plastic thing on it that chipped the paint on the frame around the switch all to hell, so it went in the trash immediately. Almost as if it were fate, I found this one in a box of stuff later on Saturday after my first ride while cleaning and having a few beers. The Kid had made this one for me back when he was a wee lad. Wow. It would almost be wrong not to use it.

[Duck-Stew]

It would.  Nice find.

[Howie]

So nice when things come together.

[Monsterlover]

[DuciD03]

                                     

waow; that's super flakey!; hurts my eyes dude! (double entendre ... intended) 

[Speedbag]

More little stuff....

I replaced the clutch cable, no more oil leak there, and routed it a little more tidily. The riding position is slightly improved now due to the slightly taller risers with a little pullback, which necessitated replacing the brake line from the master to the junction block, which necessitated a full front brake fluid flush which it needed. The bar relocation allowed adjusting the fork stops for tighter turning, which will be nice. All this reiterated the old adage 'never throw anything away' - I had the bar risers left over from my Panhead build (weren't right for that), and the brake line was left over from the original build of this bike (the line was too long then with the short straight risers). Weird how this works out sometimes.

That should do it for the short term needs, time to ride it some more before winter hits. Once winter happens (or gets close), it's time to pull the back fender for paint. Other winter fiddling will include new throttle cables and pulling the tank to clean up the grime under it as well as redo some wiring under there; I had a kill tether wired in originally to make it legal for dragstrip use, but when I got the bike back it was broken so it hit the trash can and the wiring for it got abbreviated for the time being. Beyond that it'll be a matter of removing the ugly forward control mounts and touching up a little frame paint. Still thinking about putting that CV carb on it too, although the obsolete Edelbrock seems to be dialed in nicely.

[kopfjäger]

Oh hell yeaah! 

[Duck-Stew]

Hell yeah!

[Howie]

Lookin' good!

[Speedbag]

Well kids, it's time to finish up this thread....

This thing is done. As done as it will ever be, that is. I got my freshly painted fender back from a buddy over the weekend, and got everything all back together as you can see. I gave him explicit instructions to not do a better paint job on the new fender than the old, but he went a little overboard and it looks better than the rest. Oh well, the lightly pitted chrome and other little tatters hide it. 

Otherwise, it got the CV carb over the winter along with new throttle cables. Riding the bike a little more last fall revealed that the old Edelbrock had some issues at certain throttle transitions, so that and the lack of parts availability sent it to the recycle bin. Naturally, changing the carb meant that my old air cleaner wouldn't work, because the backing plate had an integral support to tie the carb to the cylinder heads and there was no way to make it work. I bought a carb support for the CV and made a cool custom air cleaner out of a new K&N element I had laying around. But it bummed me out that my original round air cleaner wasn't there. Then on a whim one day, I did some scanning around on eBay and found a new but older outer cover, which had much nicer chrome than my original. Go figure. Made a new backing plate and we're golden. So if anyone needs a nifty, one-off air cleaner for a Harley CV, I'm your guy.

Beyond that, I just did a little rewiring and tidying under the tank and a thorough cleaning while under there. Time to ride this pig and get that new carb dialed in. Man, is it a weird feeling to put a collector plate on something you built....