I have an 83 Shovel XLCH. I want to duplicate a bike that used to ride with us 35 years ago or so. The owner has since passed and the bike sold. Nowhere to be found. Just going off of mine a few others memories. It was a 72 Sporty with 19" rear wheel, 8" over front end and 10" wheel in the front. The bike was very low and very horizontal. Drag bars for handle bars and was really cool. I need to figure out if and how he did the rake on the front end. I have several differing opinions from old friends memories. Also I would like to use Anodized rims. However the spoke count does not match the current hub of 40 spokes.. How do I do that ?

 

Well, I do not know much about choppers but I do have a few facts and opinions based on what I have learned on these forums over the years.

Most Sportsters of that era had an 18" rear wheel with 16" being an option. A 19" on the rear would be very unusual.

The stock front wheels were 19" with 21" as an option. A 10" would probably be dangerously small. I wonder if it had a front brake? Often choppers of the era had only a rear brake and this is dangerous as they typically do not have useful emergency braking capability.

An 8" over front end would be quite extreme and very difficult to ride, especially along with the odd wheel sizes. You would have to be quite an expert to design and build that combination and have it be rideable and safe.

That bike would not have been able to use the stock frame. Most likely it had an after market hard tail frame. It may even have had a home made frame as I doubt that any professional frame would support the wheel combination.

If you really want to do this it would be best to at least have a picture of the old bike.

BTW, it is almost a mortal sin to refer to an IronHead Sportster as a Shovel or a ShovelHead. A ShovelHead is a big twin of the same era. Many people confuse the two because of the similar appearance of the rocker covers. The British are especially guilty of this - the Haynes technical manual [a British publication] throughout refers to IronHeads using that incorrect terminology.

My Opinion:

Unless that original bike was designed and built by a highly technically competent engineer then this whole project is a bad idea. And unless you personally have that high level of expertise you should abandon this and do something else with your IronHead.

These are just my biased opinions. You may get more supportive and perhaps accurate information from others.

 

I'm guessing that a few of the memories are faulty...

In addition to what IronMick said, there were no 1983 XLCH models. The last one was made in 1979.