Building this bike for a friend. He got a really good deal on it, so that gave me some money to play with to make it cool. Not trying to go super nuts with it, just a cool rider. It’s a 55 lower end, seems original, in a 65-69 frame, with a late shovelhead swingarm and rear wheel, an evo springer and a mid 70s superglide tank.
Here it was when we picked it up. A lot of cheesy old guy stuff on it and a lot of bad mods. Check out that primary guard! Haha. Also note the liberal use of extension cords for wiring. Also they had an alternator and late voltage regulator on there, which left the front empty and the regulator placement was just awful. Not a fan of the late springer but it will do for now. Square swingarm will go.
Then I got it to my place and started removing some of the bullshit. The primary guard and the “sissy” and a few other things.
Had to do something with the fender, so I took the hinged part off and turned it into a bobbed tail section.
Then it was time to do something about the bars. Getting the top clamp off was a pain in the ass. Looks like someone threaded in the riser bolts with JB weld or something. Weird because the threads were perfectly fine on both.
Bent up some pinched mini apes from 304SS.
Bender wouldn’t make a tight enough bend so I had to make them in 2 pcs
No way were they fitting in springer riser clamps which are 6.5 inches outside, so had to go riserless. Modifying the top clamp:
Coping the weld on risers I made:
Test fit to get the angle, also ground down the center weld:
Welded up:
Fitted:
Next I needed to do something about that oil cooler, so I remounted it underneath the new horseshoe oil bag, which was a task all in itself, because the later frame isn’t meant to accept the earlier oil bag. They make a bolt in replacement, but it doesn’t have the same look as the OEM one, so I made the OEM one work. (Well, OEM replica). Took making a new battery tray and welding some new tabs on the frame. Also, it hade male fittings on it which I had to remove and retap to female. Here’s the removed oil cooler and the new bag
Decided to put the filter on the other side above the trans, not the easiest place to access, but 2 hoses and two bolts will get it off.
Plumbed up the whole oil system with AN lines. Replaced the cooler with a jagg one with AN ports as well.
So that’s where it sits right now. Got a round swingarm coming on Monday. Still needs to be rewired, genny installed, and probably make some mid controls for it. More soon…
