Harley Dyna Glide Page 2

"Moses used to sniff the lines
Noah used to rock the boat sometimes
Mary used to get undone
Jesus rode a Harley Davidson"

Now that all the cutting & bracket making etc is out of the way I can start putting everything back. First up is to sort out the wiring, The original light had all the wiring for the light itself, and the left / right indicators going through it, via multi wire connection plugs. Obviously, with there now being no original rear light - there's nowhere to plug anything in to! The plugs were cut away from the loom wires and everything was re-wired using auto bullet connectors and all packed away inside a plastic, petroleum jelly filled box to keep out any moisture and to keep everything away from the the rear wheel.

The little plastic box with all the wire connectors in it can be seen
hanging down beneath the chopped off rear fender in this shot

Here, the rear indicator mounting brackets that were made to
match the front pair are being fitted. Note the rear light also fitted
with it's mounting bracket placed under the fender out of sight

And here is the L/H indicator unit fitted to the mounting bracket. I was going to buy some aftermarket
turn signal units but I actually like these as they match the rear light quite well.
They'll eventually get smoked lenses fitted to them.

Next job is to fit the homemade licence plate holder, this was made from
some 4mm Aluminium plate that was kicking about the garage. Note the little
plastic wiring box is now mounted securely at the bottom of it out of harms way

Given that we have the ugliest number plates in the world here in the UK, and we have to have them no matter what, I think this
is a vast improvement over the original Harley concept of having it perpendicular above the rear light. Compared with the shot
below which was taken shortly after I got the bike, I think this looks far neater.

Next job will more than likely be to do something about the seat - not sure what that will be yet, maybe a single one.

The bike is now starting to resemble the picture had in my minds eye when I bought it. Spring's not too far off now
so I'll probably go and enjoy riding it for a while and think about what mods I can do over next winter. Maybe get rid of some
chrome, and a custom paint job is definitely on the cards for sometime in the future.

One last job I had to do for this year is fit a new seat to replace the Harley aftermarket "Sundowner" monstrosity - horrible looking thing.
This is an original seat, which to my mind (apart from a single seat) is the nicest looking seat you can fit on a Dyna - it just looks right,
most other seats look like an afterthought but HD did a great job with this design. One thing it is not though is comfortable, so I'll send it off
to my seat guy in Leeds to have some gel pads inserted in it.

This was a bit of an E.Bay bargain, guy took it off his 2004 Dyna when it was new
for an aftermarket seat, so it's perfect and cost me just £36

So - during a winter of not riding the Harley ( and not updating this website - slapped wrist!) mostly because of the foul weather that started around the end of October and never let up 'til late March, I kept myself busy by doing a few more mods to it. The smoked turn signal lenses eventually got fitted, which improved the look no end and moved things along towards the vision I have in my minds eye - we're aiming for lots of black here so dumping some chrome is essential, although not all of it because black and chrome does look pretty fantastic I think! The smoked lenses were literally only a 5 min job though, after that I managed to get hold of some cast alloy wheels to replace the chrome spoked ones - something that I've been planning to do since I bought the bike. They were in ok condition as bought but I wanted them black with polished rims, so set about cleaning them up and painting them, then having brand new Avon Venom tyres fitted.

I also managed to get hold of a used late model headlight unit with the crystal glass - God bless E.Bay! The only problem with that though was that it arrived with no pilot light gubbins and no rubber bulb seal so I had to fettle something together for it, made with bits that were lying around the workshop. Another E.Bay bargain were a pair of gen Harley aftermarket mirrors - bought brand new for just £25. Anyway - here's some more photos.

Killing two birds with one photo - the cute little short stem Harley mirrors bought new, and the smoked indicator lenses

The wheels were taken off a 2003 Anniversary Dyna. The front one had bearings installed which were fine but this one,
the rear, had none so I had to buy new ones plus a new a spacer & fit them.

I wasn;t sure whether I wanted the spokes painting all black or to leave the
centre strips polished - this was a half / half test to see which I preferred..........

............The solid black spokes won! This paint is a new, supposedly super hard enamel that I'm trying out
which I got in rattle cans from Halfords - smells like ordinary Acrylic enamel to me though,
but I'll reserve judgement until I've seen how they stand up during use. If they chip I'll have them painted
in 2 x pack - which I won't spray myself anymore due to health issues associated with it so I'll farm them out.
Note the new wheel bearings are now fitted?

I couldn't decide which of these 2 photos to use so put them both on. Hey! It's only webspace - something I'm fast running
out of at the moment as it happens! This is the E.Bay headlight unit I picked up second hand. It was actually from a Sporty that was being
exported to Germany where they drive on the wrong side of the road so it had to have a new right dipping light fitted and this
one was surplus to requirements - my gain.

A quick before and after comparison to save anyone having to go back to the first page! This a crappy shot of the bike,
taken on a mobile phone the day I bought it from Harleyworld in Chesterfield, it's been subtly changed a bit since back then .

The more observant souls amongst us may have noticed that the horn has been re-located and a new "filler" piece inserted between the cylinders to get rid of that fugly cowbell thing! The horn now lives down in front of the primary case on a bracket that was made here for the purpose and the filler piece was made from some 1/4" plate aluminium that was left over from fabricating a pair of exhaust brackets to hold up the Acraprovic end cans on son Ben's Honda VTR SP-1.

I also cobbled together this little number - a heel plate to keep my boot off the hot exhaust
and prevent baked on rubber getting stuck on there! I'd already spent ages on a few occasions trying to get the
hard baked-on rubber off and it ain't easy. I made it this shape to match the turn signal brackets.

These straight 4" bar risers were fitted to replace the original 4.5" pull backs in early May. I bought them from a guy on E.Bay but the
pic of them on there made them look far far better than they actually were. They're some kind of home made affairs - bloody heavy buggers!
They'd been shot blasted and left for a while by the looks and were quite pitted in places. I gave them a quick coat of black paint and also the
headlight cowl while I was at it, but I intend t fit some flat bars sometime in the future so I'll bin these risers then!

I never really wanted bags on the Dyna but I get out for long day rides during the summer and like to take a few bits and pieces. Waterproofs for one thing
- hey this is Britain we live in where rain is our national product so it makes sense right? Also, now that there's alloy wheels on there I'd like to carry a
puncture outfit plus a few small tools for when things fall off! So, bags it was and after scouring E.Bay for some decent used ones for months and finding
nothing I liked, I decided t go for new. These are German made Held bags & were on offer (end of line I think) from V.Twin Mania in Edinburgh - great
people to deal with BTW - for a really good price. I kinda like them. I'll take a better photo outside when, and if it ever stops raining here.

That just about brings everything up to date. Future plans include the fitting of some iridium spark plugs which are already on order. The jury's out on whether they actually give any improvement beyond the placebo effect but I like the scientific theory behind them so decided to give them a go. I wanted to go to a grade colder plug anyway and one thing that iridium plugs will do is allow that without fouling like a traditional plug is prone to do. I'll report back with how the bike goes on with them. I've also got a pair of straight 4" bar risers on order which will pitch me forward a little and hopefully fine tune the riding position a bit, more pics will follow when they're fitted. Something else I want to do at some point is to have the slip on silencers powder coated black, plus I have plans for the downpipe heat shields - watch this space :o) Note in the above photo that the nasty chrome cover has gone from the rear belt pulley too. The pulley was painted at the same time as the wheels, the saddlebag stays were fitted too, I need saddlebags so I can carry my camera gear with me - I do take lots of photos, see my other website http://www.dewisant-photography.net