Engine rebuild

Late September 2008 the work begun to lift out the now quite tired AMF power plant for further care at the Potato speed shop.

Mr Potato is a known Shovelhead friend who not only wrenches the beast, he also races the Shovel on the 1/4 mile distance.

Disassembly was not a happy experience, even though the engine had an overhaul autumn 2005 according to the documentation I got when I bought it. The heads was totally crap and the piston rings were wrong. Only one valve seat was ok, the others were a mess.
Two valves were bent and the rear exhaust valve guide fell out by itself !!!!
But with some appropriate help a new custom valve guide was fabricated and a new big guide hole was milled out so we later could press it in to the head. Only thing that had an ok status was the cylinders and pistons so we kept them.
Even the crank pin rollers had factory specs after 60000km/37000miles so we just replaced the cage.

Potato Speedshop, where Shovels get's TLC and eternal life.

The recipe for my Shovelhead overhaul:

# Compression release valves

# 2” Kibblewhite intake valves.

# Basic porting on the heads.

# A fresh Keihin CV carb with a permanent mounted flange for S&S intake.

# S&S intake ported to match head

# Custom air box with K&N filter and OEM cover.

# Andrews J cam

# Crane cro-moly pushrods

# Jims lifters

And of course all bearings, gaskets and other worn out stuff was replaced.

The heads got glass blasted for a shiny look and the cylinders a nice coat of black paint.

To top it of, the OEM mufflers was replaced by dual Supertrapp slip ons but more about carb and muffler later.

The mighty 1340cc/80" engine rebuild started like this:

Deconstruction in progress

Out with the power and some serious cleaning of the empty middlesection

Mr Potato himself with his magic Shovelhands starting the renewal

New customvalveguide in it's new home

Overhauled head with Mr Potato's special "clearance check, rocker cover"

After I made the porting we gave the head a run in the flow bench.

When the heads was overhauled we also mounted a set of compression rear head.

A friend helped me to machine a hole for the release valve.

We also did an extension for better reach.

It is a tight fit between the sparkplug and the release valve

The other gizmo with the cable is the "cylinder head temperature sensor".
This was apparently original equipment on the old FLT's.

The sensor on the rear head is paired with this gauge in the fairing.

(What the hole next to it is for is a enigma and it's not pretty either.)

Than I did a dynorun again to compare before and after the overhaul.

One of the pull's

Red -> before overhaul vs Blue -> after the overhaul

Not so much difference but nice even curves after.

The second winter (08/09)

This time there was time to give the mighty Shovelhead some attention.
I also replaced the carb and the mufflers to match the new life of the Shovelhead
The Floorboards then moved to a more comfortable position for a guy at 190cm/ 6ft 3”.
Lower brackets for the side bags got upgraded some mounts and black powdercoat and the fenderstruts went the same way.

# Engine rebuild
# Carb & mufflers
# Floorboards
# Uppgraded lower bag brackets
# Fenderstruts

The first winter (07/08)

First job was to give the wheels some serious attention.
So a total degreasing, grinding, painting and polishing took place.
After that I changed all bearings finally the new tires were mounted.
When that was done the brakes was totally rebuilt with new discs and all calipers had new gaskets and pads.
Not much else wasn't done that winter except for a huge amount of overall checking of all small things that was loose and/or stuck.

Some of the stuff that got a serious polish or new shiny chrome

Degreased and ready for new bearings, black paint and polish.

The first season (a very short)

Late summer of 2007 I was finally a Shovelhead owner, and best of all, it was sitting in an awesome bike.
The rest of that year I just rode the beast just to get the real bagger feeling.
I also did a dyno run just to se the status of the mighty Shovelhead.

Despite the quite shaggy state of the bike I was hooked at once, both with the smooth ride and the unusual looks.

When the winter came my first wrenching with the FLT begun.
At first it looked like it was pretty much untouched but the more I wrenched it I realized the previous owners had done a lot of bad DIY work over the years. Some of the worst example was the switch of many nuts and bolts to metric ones. Oh, my good Mr Davidson and Mr Harley had cried in their graves if they knew.
When i bought the bike i got papers that told that the engine was totally rebuilt from the cylinders and up just two years earlier (2005) which sounded great, but more about that nightmare later...

The purchase

I bought my dream bike from a Harley dealer who had got it as a trade-in for a new bagger.

Me and the ol' lady took a trip there with the car for an optical inspection what it looked like.
The bike was in a pretty bad shape with lots of oil and dirt, it had also been parked outside mostly.
But that didn't scare me at all, and it made the price more right.
The tire tread wasn't even legal so I was also offered two new sticky tires for free if I bought the bike.

So on a sunny Saturday in august I took my new hobby for a drive for the first time.
But it was a quite bad start the bike gave me, the engine had no idle at all and the drivability was really poor.
Well back at the dealer I borrowed some tools and got a set of new sparkplugs. I changed them quick and fired it up again.
(Yes, when you buy that kind of bike from a Harley dealer you supposed to do the wrenching yourself. *Hehe*)
Now there was different sound from the mighty AMF power plant.
Some signatures later we could put the new tires in the trunk of the car and home we went, but this time with two vehicles.


The story begun like this:

Swebagger - the story

On this page I'm about to tell the past, present and future story about my bagger project.

The facts: 
A Harley Davidson Tourglide from 1980.
The first year with the rubber mount frame design that lasted from 1980-2008 and used by the FLT and later the FLH model. The base of this frame construction was also used for the FXR model 1982-1994.

The vision: 
An extreme contradiction, a Race bagger based on the Shovelhead FLT with both show and go!
In the end it will hopefully have some nice specs and features.

/ Jonas
World -> Europe -> Sweden -> Gothenburg