intermittant noise in front cylinder . . .

It's just an everyday rider, but thanks for the compliment. Heading out later today to get some gas and then grab a Subway. Man & machine must have fuel . . .

I guess if a fella wants to ride bad enough, he'll do just about anything to achieve that goal. I'm just happy the bike is running good right now - but no TV show, thank you, LMAO.

The next 4 days are lookin' good for riding - temps anywhere from 60 today to the mid 70s later in the week - oh yeah. Tattoo's been out of town for Thanksgiving and will be back to work today. He wants to see the new tank and shifter, so I'm riding out to his shop this morning . . .

Tattoo Tony was quite impressed with the changes I made to the bike. He especially liked the tank, but still insists I get a kill switch.

So, I ordered a momentary button switch from J&P, the type that went on early bikes and is attached to the bars with two sheet metal screws and the wires run inside the bars. It has two wires; one grounds to the frame, and one attaches to the top (negative end) of the coil. It's a compromise getting a momentary switch, but the "real" ones were just so bulky or made out of plastic I couldn't see any of them on my sickle.

Dang, where would I be without J&P? The vintage tech support guy told me how to wire it in. . . .

Say fellas, I just thought I'd add a few more notes about the jockey shift/suicide clutch conversion I did - just in case anyone might be as crazy as I am (or know somebody) who might want to try it. But first of all let me say that I would have preferred to go with a rocker clutch, but I would have had to change my forward controls. The FXST forward controls I have now are cast steel and are considerably stouter than the flat, stamped ones I would have had to go with.

Anyway, I only had to do four simple things for the conversion:
FIRST, I bought an extended release arm from FabKevin, which is heavier duty than the mousetrap variety I could have used and allows the heim to be attached with a bolt.
SECOND, I shortened the inner shift lever (painted black, see pic closeup) by about 1 1/2" for a bit more leverage, then reground it to a pleasing shape & redrilled a new hole at the tip to accept the shoulder bolt/bushing that holds the front heim on.
THIRD, I drilled and tapped an extra hole in the front of the outer shift lever, then continued drilling into the shaft 1/4" or so (see pic closeup). The extra allen bolt insures that the lever will not spin around on the shaft. I ground the end of the allen bolt to the correct shape so it will fit snugly into the hole in the shaft when tightned up.
FOURTH, I fabbed the rod out of 5/16" dia. mild steel, threaded each end about 1 5/8". After some fine tuning on the rod length, it was ready to go.

Not at this time . . . maybe never. I've been trying to find an older Sporty drum brake already laced to a 19" chrome wheel in very good condition. I think that set up was found on some other 1200 Harley models as well just before disc brakes came on the scene.

I did find one rebuilt brake/wheel combo, but the asking price was well over $500; which was sold before I could come up with the scratch.