That's a good question. I really don't know. Flying pretty blind here.

My first inclination is to take it all off (including the "manifold" bar that goes between the two fork caps), find some bolts to seal the resulting holes, and see how it rides. How does that sound? Am I being stupid here?

That does leave the question of how to change the folk fluid once I can't do the nifty vacuum thing any more. Getting in to the forks is such a royal PITA.

I have it in the back of my mind to dig back in next winter and do some serious front suspension upgrades. At the moment, I just don't have time to do much more than get it rolling.

What would you be doing if this was your bike?

 

Excellent. Thanks for the link.

Digging in now...

 

One thing to check would be how long your factory wiring is. I found out after cutting to extend wiring that I probably could have got away with the factory wiring. Are you doing wires in bars also?

 

Yeah, I'd like to do internal wiring.

There is not a lot of spare wire on my controls. I don't see any chance that I could pull them out of the connector, run them through the bars, then get them back into the connector.

Speaking of which, one thing that has me concerned is this:



That orange wire is going into the connector on the left side controls. The other end looks to be going to the spot light switch on the inner fairing, but it gets bundled with some other wires so I can't be sure yet.

According to the wiring diagram, that spot on the connector is supposed to be open:



Gives me a bit of pause. I had thought of this bike as stock, but obviously someone's been in there mucking things up.

 

For me, I would keep the air system as is on mine, I worked out a combo of oil capacity, viscosity and air pressure that works great, plus the antidive under braking that works.

I think it wouldn't work well with zero pressure and stock springs.

For now, you could just eliminate the antidive reservoir, by connecting a schrader valve to the hose that went to the bars, maybe a longer hose for access.

The fitting in the end of the bars unscrews and you could probably find a female barb fitting that will work with it to connect to the hose.

That way you still have the air spring to adjust and fork oil changes made easy.

 

Is it possible to plumb the anti-dive to the crashbar instead on the handlebars?

 

I've read about guys doing that. I've also read that the reason HD went away from that design was that fork oil would collect in the crash bar. Don't know if that's true or not.

I've decided for now to go with Schex3x's recommendation and fit some sort of tube coming off the valve down to the underside of the fairing. I won't have much of a reservoir, but will be able to pressurize the forks and do the vacuum oil change trick. That will hold me until the winter when I'm looking at doing a full upgrade on the forks anyway.

Just got done ordering some bars. It's nice having a friend next door with an indy shop. We ordered three different bars, all from Wild 1: Their "bagger bars" as well as 10" and 12.5" apes. Should arrive tomorrow. I'll dry fit them to see how they feel, make a selection, then go from there. By this time tomorrow I need to have a selection made so I can order the cables and brake lines (if I need them). With any luck, those can still arrive this week.

Called the guys at Wild 1. Very helpful. Gave me a lot of confidence. My main concern right now is I really don't have time to make any mistakes.

 

Yes. Harley did that on the earlier ElectraGlides. You'll need the different crashbar that has the fittings, unless you want to weld on the existing one and have it re-chromed.

My anti-dive leaks air over the course of a week. Probably needs some new seals. And yes, even on a FLHS, it's a royal PITA to get at. Can't imagine what it's like on a batwing bike.

I think good set of progressive springs in the front forks would be fine. The anti-dive, when working is a nice setup, just prone to leaks.

 

I know it's a different bike but I just extended the wires on my 85 FXST to go with bigger bars and run the wires through them. Instead of making two solder connections at the splice I just ordered some new terminal pins =TE Connectivity/AMP 60620-1 and got some crimpers that roll the crimps the right way.After chasing pieces of heat shrink around town that were longer than 6-8 inches to put the bundle of wires back in I secured some that came in 2 foot or so lengths at a shop that installs stereo equipment.

 

Mine juts has the front air line routed to the left rear side cover behind the seat. Works fine with no reservoir . Probably because of the extra length of line. I do the Mity-Vac fluid swap just fine from the left rear cover. Your existing throttle cables should work fine with 12" bars. I had to go with a little longer clutch cable. Go with 1 1/4" bars. Much easier to route the wiring. Much less vibration too if you go with heavier bars like the Wild-1 Chubby's.