1982 FLT Shovelhead
#6
05-14-2014, 01:27 PM
I somehow managed to forget that I posted the bike on this page! I do still have the bike and I know the entire history.
I actually bought the bike from its fourth owner. He laid out the entire ownership history for me. The bike was originally owned by an executive of Harley-Davidson. I don't remember his name, but I can find out for you if you want to know. He wasn't anybody famous like Willie G., I think he was an auditor or accountant or something. Anyway, this was his "company" motorcycle. You might remember that 1982 was the year that a group of executives bought the company back from AMF so this was the first year of production back under private ownership. That man owned the bike for about a year. When he got his new company bike he sold this one to his son-in-law, also a Harley employee.
The son-in-law owned the bike for a couple of years and he sold it to another Harley employee. That man, the third owner, kept it for over 20 years. He worked for Harley for 30 years or more and was obviously very well acquainted with the bikes and took great care of this one. While he owned it he had it painted Viper red. It's a very nice color and shows very well.
That man sold it in 2012 to the person I bought it from. He was a very avid motorcycle restorer. He's some kind of engineer, which gives him an engineers kind of attention to detail. Since he likes working on bikes so much he pulled it into the garage and took the heads off to give it a valve job (it had about 75,000 miles by that point). He told me that he noticed it had Wiseco pistons and that one of them was backwards, so he took the cylinders off, corrected the piston and resealed the jugs and heads in addition to the valve job. He installed an Andrews cam that he said the engine "likes better". He also replaced all of the components of the charging system, the rotor, stator and voltage regulator. He said there was nothing wrong with what was on it, but he had the parts "on the shelf" and he says that every bike needs them sooner or later. So, he just went ahead and put the stuff on there. He doesn't keep anything for long so after about a year I bought it from him (he had put it up for sale on a shovelhead forum) and brought it down here.
Before I brought it home I had him put new Dunlop tires on it. The bike fires right up and runs like a dream. It's also extremely comfortable. I love the bike and don't really want to sell it. The reason that I am selling is because I just bought a 1975 Trans Am and I need to put a little work into it. I have two motorcycles and I'm more sentimentally attached to the other one than to the FLT, so I'm selling the FLT to raise funds to work on the Trans Am. Besides, it's not really fair to the family that I have a bunch of money tied up in toys that only I can enjoy. My wife and kids can ride with me sometimes, but they're not really getting any satisfaction out of them. At least my wife can drive the Trans Am and in a few years so can the kids.
I've dropped the price down to $5900, which I think is a bargain.
I actually bought the bike from its fourth owner. He laid out the entire ownership history for me. The bike was originally owned by an executive of Harley-Davidson. I don't remember his name, but I can find out for you if you want to know. He wasn't anybody famous like Willie G., I think he was an auditor or accountant or something. Anyway, this was his "company" motorcycle. You might remember that 1982 was the year that a group of executives bought the company back from AMF so this was the first year of production back under private ownership. That man owned the bike for about a year. When he got his new company bike he sold this one to his son-in-law, also a Harley employee.
The son-in-law owned the bike for a couple of years and he sold it to another Harley employee. That man, the third owner, kept it for over 20 years. He worked for Harley for 30 years or more and was obviously very well acquainted with the bikes and took great care of this one. While he owned it he had it painted Viper red. It's a very nice color and shows very well.
That man sold it in 2012 to the person I bought it from. He was a very avid motorcycle restorer. He's some kind of engineer, which gives him an engineers kind of attention to detail. Since he likes working on bikes so much he pulled it into the garage and took the heads off to give it a valve job (it had about 75,000 miles by that point). He told me that he noticed it had Wiseco pistons and that one of them was backwards, so he took the cylinders off, corrected the piston and resealed the jugs and heads in addition to the valve job. He installed an Andrews cam that he said the engine "likes better". He also replaced all of the components of the charging system, the rotor, stator and voltage regulator. He said there was nothing wrong with what was on it, but he had the parts "on the shelf" and he says that every bike needs them sooner or later. So, he just went ahead and put the stuff on there. He doesn't keep anything for long so after about a year I bought it from him (he had put it up for sale on a shovelhead forum) and brought it down here.
Before I brought it home I had him put new Dunlop tires on it. The bike fires right up and runs like a dream. It's also extremely comfortable. I love the bike and don't really want to sell it. The reason that I am selling is because I just bought a 1975 Trans Am and I need to put a little work into it. I have two motorcycles and I'm more sentimentally attached to the other one than to the FLT, so I'm selling the FLT to raise funds to work on the Trans Am. Besides, it's not really fair to the family that I have a bunch of money tied up in toys that only I can enjoy. My wife and kids can ride with me sometimes, but they're not really getting any satisfaction out of them. At least my wife can drive the Trans Am and in a few years so can the kids.
I've dropped the price down to $5900, which I think is a bargain.
