Riding it!

Three weeks from bare frame to runner! Still lots to do: hook up the rear brake, lights, rear fender, finish the wiring, paint, etc. Thinking about shortening the springer to improve the stance. It all needs to come back apart to paint the frame, but this is farther than I expected to get this fast. Rides great too, better than my swing arm 60.

Stole the mousetrap release lever off my Pan-shovel to get this one running. Note the 2x4 kickstand stop to keep it from rubbing on the primary belt.

Red Tail Leather seat

Seat mock-up

Roller is getting real close to a runner. The seat is from Red Tail Leather out in SoCal, mounted with Fab Kevin's invisible seat hinge and spring bungs. Chain and rear brake are mounted, just need to attach the stay rod to the frame. Only thing keeping me from riding it today is the clutch release. I was hoping to use Fab Kevin's extended clutch release lever, but it didn't clear the oil tank on the right side, so I need a stock mousetrap arm. Once I get that, the foot clutch lever and linkage are ready to go.

Battery mount

Made a simple battery box by welding piece of angle to the back brace on the oil tank, drilled two holes for threaded rods, and secured the 12V battery with an aluminum hold-down.

It's a runner

The mock-up phase is rolling along with a big milestone achieved today, getting the bike running. Two weeks ago this was a bare frame and the engine was still sitting in the 81 FLT donor, so progress has been quite rapid. I expect to come to a grinding halt shortly! Despite sitting for over a year, the Shovel fired right up on the crappy old gas still in the fuel bowl. This is a far cry from the experience I had trying to get the 60 FLH started. Thank god for advance weights for one thing. The Shovel also kicks over with barely half the effort of the Pan, which tells me something is not stock in that motor. It would seem to have a lot more compression than this stock 80ci Shovel. Anyway, the Shovel fired up on literally the third kick. I left it running for a couple minutes and did a walk around, checking for leaks, flames, or anything else out of the ordinary, which is when I noticed a large puddle of black oil under the bike. It looked to be coming from the crankcase breather, which is odd because the engine never leaked in the FLT. I shut it off and started thinking about what could have caused it and double-checked the oil line routing. I think there was just a buildup of oil sitting in the cases, maybe from kicking the engine over a bunch while I was setting up the trans, and it puked it all out on startup. I fired it up a couple more times and it's stopped doing it, so all would seem to be OK.

I also installed an original H-D police-style hand shifter yesterday. I had planned to run a ratchet top, but I had a real nice tank shift top I found at a swap meet, so rather than change out the stepped shift gate on the police shifter, I'll try the handshift to start. I had to make a rod to connect the lid to the shifter, so I got some 5/16 steel rod and threaded both ends. I had to bend an offset into it to line up the linkage ends, and it still feels like it's binding a little. Might have to tweak that before I get the bike on the road.

I've got a load of parts on the way from Fab Kevin, including the pieces I need to fit the rear axle and space the wheel and rear disc, so it will be a couple weeks before I can have this rolling under its own power. But this weekend's work was a huge step forward.

The Plan

Roll
Run
Stop
Ride
Look Pretty

That's the game plan for the project.

Slapped on some slash cut pipes I had leftover from a basketcase I parted out and got started bolting the trans and primary together.