Custom '72 H-D bobber

After seeing a bunch of crappy aftermarket mirrors I found the Halcyon brand at Revival Cycles in Texas.  Made in England and all stainless with a three piece wedge mounting system I ordered a pair.  They arrived yesterday and were on the bike in a few minutes.  Wow!  High quality, great field of vision, reduced vibration and they ratchet up and out of the way if needed.  I love them!  

I installed them last night so I could head over to the Inn at St. John's for the Concours d'Elegance America.  They have a stunning C&C Saturday morning where I met some friends.  Put on about 50 early morning miles.  On my way to the event I passed the HD dealership where I took my MSF classes and saw that they were running a class.  On the way home I stopped and talked to me teacher and the head of the customizing group at this location who came out, saw the bike and was very impressed with the build and my uncle's sourced components.  He suggested I enter it in some shows as it was so well done.  Not sure I'm ready for a motorcycle show but we'll see.  

Running PIG RICH so got a complete set of jets for the carb.  Almost 200 miles of just bopping around on it.  Got a chain guard on it now along with an Air Hawk seat cover.  I tuned the carb as best I could today but it’s still stinky and pipe is full of black tar not soot so time to tear apart the S&S Super E carb.  It’s slow but I’m hoping fine tuning the carb will make it run much better at higher revs. 

S&S carb very sensitive to idle mix adjustment, 1/8 turn is a large change.

Idle mix must be set hot (~50 miles), if you set it cold it will blacken the plugs.

I'd start with a 29.5 low speed jet and a 72 main jet.

Do not put drag pipes on it.....

Do not transport the bike on the side stand, tie it down upright not leaning on the stand,

Thanks for the input on carb and trailering.  

I drove it a bunch yesterday then went thru settings on S&S website.  Seemed to be somewhat better but still puffing black smoke at idle. Today I pulled the carb down and saw a 29.5 low speed jet and 70 main jet.  I dropped to a 28 and 66 but saw a missing oring in the ejector rod and the bowl gasket was a bit rough.  Also accessing the bowl screws was a PITA.  I had to break open the oil lines to the rocker boxes, loosen up the oil pressure gauge, and remove a plug wire (dual plug conversion) to get the bowl off.  Parts ordered including some sweet extended hex head bowl fasteners, gaskets, o-rings, and a new air filter.  I’ll get it back on the road as soon as I have the parts.  

Sometimes it is just easier to pull the carb off.  Kinda sounds like you need to go through the whole thing anyway.  The Super E is a great carb for 1200-1340 CC bikes.  Keep a record of what jets are in it and how it acted with the jets, then start fiddling one at a time.  Only change the idle mixture screw after it is fully warmed up, as noted by bentwrench.  I do mine after like after 20 minutes of riding.   Turn the accelerator pump completely off until you have the mixture right.

Thanks Dr. Hess.  S&S Cycle has a couple of good videos on YouTube for base line settings and jet changes should that not cure the issues.  I've noted the jets that were in place and what changes I've made.  Carb is clean and bike fires easily just really rich.  I rode for quite a while before making adjustments on Saturday.  It did help a bit but not enough.  The 29.5 (mistake-28 jet was installed not 29.5) and 70 jets were pulled and swapped for smaller and the new parts will make future changes easier with less disassembly.  My uncle only did two-lane roads so I doubt he ever dug in to the carb.  I am working on making it run better.  I'm looking for a clean running engine not ultimate performance.  I'm too new of a rider-and the bike is to old of a bike- to have that for a goal!

Bentwrench-not sure what you mean by drag pipes.  I'm using the exhaust that my uncle installed-two into one with a muffler.  I've spoken to local H-D techs (grey haired guys with their own Shovelheads) and they have advised a two-into-one system is the way to go.      

Drag pipes (on a Sportster):

On the S&S Super E, most of the time you are running off the idle mixture screw and the intermediate jet.  The main jet doesn't come on until you are getting pretty far up there in RPM and flow.  Fiddling with the intermediate and idle mixture screw is what you probably need to be doing, but again, with the accelerator pump turned off (screw out.)

Thanks again.  I expect the parts will arrive today and hope to get some time to work on it.  Lots of family activities in the next few days so, sadly, that may not work out.  

Was busy end of the week getting ready to go camping in this little beauty!

1963 Airstream Bambi.  16' of polished aluminum glory!

Got home last night and back to work today.  Got to the garage tonight and re-assembled the carb with a 26.5 intermediate and a 66 main jet.  Pulled better across entire rev range on the short trip I took tonight.  I'll get some more miles on it this week and re-run the carb setting procedure.  I'm happier now than before about how it is running.  I also installed a new air filter, extended hex-head carb bowl screws (for faster future carb changes and work) and used Loc-tite on all threaded fasteners when I reassembled it.  Feels good to work on something my uncle took such great care to build and had loved so much!  

Make sure to always put blue loctite on the three screws that hold the air cleaner backing plate to the carb.  If one of those screws gets loose, it gets sucked right into the engine.

Thanks!  I saw that when looking around on the Lowbrow Customs site where I ordered the extended bowl screws.  I had the carb bore blocked with a rag when I tore things down and again tonight when I reassembled it.  

Mirror pic.  Just noticed my Cougar in the reflection.  Not planned at all.

Put on some more miles today and like how it is running with the reduced jets.  Not much acceleration but pulls cleanly through the rev range.  Now to toughen up my butt and back!

Acceleration is all relevant.  A 74" shovel is not that fast of a bike, all thing considered and compared to the bikes of today.  It can be made fast.  Really fast, like wheelies in 3rd gear by rolling on the throttle, but it will cost you.  A lot.  In dollars and reliability, and reliability wasn't that good to start with. 

The ride on this thing is rough so I did some research and found that you can adjust the rear coil spring to accomodate a passenger or load.  With one seat and a less than enamored wife, I decided to look in to adjusting the springs as they were at the highest rate (maximum compression).  I took them to minimum compression and went for a long ride.  Ahhhhh!  Much better!  I then saw where the rear fender hit the license plate frame and cut through the paint!  ARRRGGGHHH!  Now I know why my uncle had the spring rate set so high!  I ordered a set of seat springs and mounts for a hardtail chopper.  To mount them will require relocting the frame ground connection which will require two new ground cables, cutting off the grounding tab, drilling the frame for a new ground mount, installing the new longer ground cables, drilling the frame and installing the spring mounts, and mounting the springs to the seat.  I also may have stripped a blind nut within the seat pan taking things apart.  When I'm done with that I can return the spring rate to highest setting to avoid future frame to fender interludes.  So, I got my work cut out for me.

Pics or it didn't happen, right?

Right above the Army air defense artillery brass pin my uncle installed is the rubber bushing which sits on a piece of rubber hose on the frame.  That's gotta go!

Here it is again.  The SHCS going thru the steel bar was rusted pretty well in place.

Here is the battery ground tab that's directly in the way of the bolt through style spring mount.  

Frame marked for drilling.

Pieces 

I'm done for the night but will be back on it tomorrow as it's Labor Day!  I'm also taking the Airstream back to storage and cleaning up my Coleman pop-up prior to lisintg it for sale. 

In reply to wawazat :

I’ll give you $250 for the Coleman.  

HAHAHAHA you jackhole!

Sold the Coleman.  My wife was sure we'd have it in the spring.  Hunter came by and bought it yesterday.

Well, the seat spring experiment was an owner induced dismal failure.  Seat spring rate isn't posted anywhere and I went with 3" high to get some travel.  From what my large, uncalibrated duff told me when I sat on the seat, rate was 400lbs/in/spring-I have two.  Plus the seat was jacked up high enough to kill the looks of the bike so off they went.  I wanted suspension travel and license plate clearance using what I had for a license plate mount.  That's not gonna work.  I reassembled the seat as I got it and will be installing a new license plate mount and adjusting the springs.

Live and learn.

Took a COLD ride to a small local shop for some work in the bike.  Tires were 7 years old and front forks were leaking so they are working on both.  Tires are mounted and waiting on new fork lowers as previous shop my uncle used jacked them all up when they were assembled and hey won’t come apart.   NOS HD lowers arrive today and tubes arrive Monday.  Of course Michigan is experiencing its coldest and snowiest November on record so it’ll be trailered home instead of ridden.  

WOW!  What a difference a sealed set of forks makes!  I had Clutch& Throttle in Detroit tear down the front end to replace the seals.  The bike was lowered incorrectly and the fork lowers were jammed in to the uppers and were stuck together.  Found an OEM set of lowers on closeout and Brad rebuilt the front end with standard height springs.  He test rode the bike and was happy with how well it rode.  I had always found it a bit of a PITA before the work was done.  I chose to ride it home (mid-40's) and was SHOCKED at how much better the ride was.  Took a ride up a road I know well and aimed for the bumps and didn't feel every one in the base of my spine for the first time.  Worth the money and looking forward to next spring!

Got the old girl out of storage and put some miles on her the last couple of weeks when temps warmed up.  Put about 30 miles on yesterday and really pleased with front suspension changes.  New tires are nice too.   Looking forward to miles this year. 
 

Adrian-spotted your neighbor in the blue 911 pulling out on to Beverly Rd this weekend and have him the nod and wave.  Great color on that car!

Needed to get out for a bit today so lit her up and took a 10 mile jaunt to clear the cobwebs outta my head.  Cold but felt good to be out.   Tomorrow supposed to be in the 60's but rainy.

The oil tank and battery are suspended from the frame by 4 of the cheesiest POS rubber grommets ever invented.  They start sagging and pop, start coming apart.  The newest replacement ones have a metal spring inside and last better.  They are a normal maintenance item, like a top end job, on that era bike.  Just a FYI.

The battery tray on my bike is welded to the frame.  I haven't looked closely at the oil tank but will today when I wheel it out for clearance when working on the Cougar.

OK.  If it's welded on to the frame, then you don't have to worry about the cheesy grommet thingies.