Me again.Can anyone tell me if I can identify the size of my origional motor by the serial numbers?Harley's website only goes back to 84(mines a 76)and when I input the sn,it says invalid entry.Same happened at a Harley shop.

 

All IronHeads were 900cc up to 1971. After that they are all 1000cc.

This is not encoded in the engine serial number.

The number lookups typically work only for 1981-on which have the modern long VIN.

 

I had something here that decoded the VIN/Eng s/n, but I'll be damned if I can find it right now. Someone will post, but unless your motor was pre 1972 it is a 1000cc motor. Previous to that they were 900cc.

Just found it, the first two letter designate the model of bike 3A is XL or XLH. 4A is XLCH. 4D is XLA and 2G is XLT.

After that the next 5 digits are the s/n. The eighth and nineth characters depict "H" as Harley Davidson and the nineth is the year of the bike, yours should be a 6.

 

yes,ok,so mine is an xlch.I was told though (by a harley dealer)that it may be a 1200.I guess not?

 

Yeah the dealer either didn't know he has looking at an IH or doesn't know anything about one.

 

lol,yeah,im finding they dont seem to know much about the older bikes,period.I had the same problems with my brit bikes,thats why I'm lovin this site.Thanks to all