73 shovelhead

gonna make you guys sick with pics this week, get your hankies out...
when your e done drooling over the good ones, you can cry over the bad ones.

kinda like the paints...

more pics...here is the trunk, pic is my woman with dad's road king.

just got my baffles...misread, now i have 4

here are some sad pics...flakey frame paint between seat and tank, and mucho dusto

and then the lovely paint and body work, see the shade difference in tank and body paint

shock have been replaced since this happened

clamp around exhaust, bad mate, melted harness...temp. fixed




gonna try to get busy on the trunk on rainy days
of course now work decides to pick up and i am building some
storage space in back.

Looks like an intense project, but hey, that is OK. Thanks for the pictures..

That's a sweet ride....the tank emblem is for a '57. I have a book called "Harley Davidson Data Book" gives paint options for the years and a lot of other info....1st year stuff,only year stuff, models offered and the numbers produced etc etc...

Geeze...just looked up Paint Colors for '73 and all it said was Birch Whitelisted a lot more options for color's in the other years....

i bet you would. thanks anyway. my mechanical abilities are quite advanced though.

just finished my classic 1987 bmw engine rebuild, it was a mess.
broke a oil pump gear (same as timing belt break), lost all six intake
rockers, 5 intake valves and 4 exhaust valves. took me 10 months,
but it purrs now. here are a few pics of that project...just for kicks




i get off on tearing stuff apart and rebuilding it.
problem is...knowing where a good stopping point is. i hate cutting corners,
so i always go too deep. OL never complains though...:cheers:

thanks...i am sooo looking forward to the shovel project...

love it more everytime i go into the garage...quick question though.
is it unreasonable to think i can ride it stripped down, and put on the bags
and windshield on long hauls or events ? i mean, if it took 2 or 3 hours to
switch thats no prob. just not sure yet if that is an option.

the one thing i dont want to remove is my kickstarter (kidding)
poor dad aint got one on his "fancy" bike, he just gots a button...

Is that called progress?????

in obamas eyes maybe, to me its retiring a useful option.

well, time for a carb rebuild. ordered kit for the S&S E today. went for a short putt, first one. couldn't get over 50 mph. i installed 8" baffles and adjusted carb, but she no perform up to my standards. plunger bellows are all cracked and oogley. pretty sure someone rebuilt with the wrong kit anyway. paperwork for rebuild kit i got with the manual and bike plainly says...keihin. correct me if i am wrong.

I thought Harley was still using the Bendix carb in '73 - could be wrong. My 1977 shovel motor came with a Keihin butterfly carb which I have rebuilt. I have a CV carb for backup if I don't like the way the Keihin performs. But I remember that carb doing well enough back in the '70's. It won't be long now until I start 'er up for the first time.