Oh hell ya. That would be great man. But did you look at a map of East Durham? It's near Catskill, NY, on the northern side of the Catskill mountains. Oz and I will be riding down from way up North of that, about 2 hours away. Plan right now is to leave Amsterdam about 7am, take ST-30 south to Middleburg and then east on ST-145 over to E. Durham. That will put us at the Rally around 9am to register for the show. Would love to link up with you Omar. But that would be a hell of a ride for you...

 

Oh I didn't know you were riding south... I would be rising north. I checked the directions to the rally and it said 2hrs 22min I will see if I have any buddies up for it... Would be great to meet up and see that beast in person!

 

Excellent. I'll pm you my cell. Hoping you can make it.

 

Hey ergo...

I've been lurking on this thread for a while, following your progress, and I've just gotta throw my 2 cents in...

The bike came out amazing! All the attention to detail was really well executed, everything flows nicely, and all the little trick mods that make you go "what did he do there...?" really make the bike man. I love it.

How do you like the cut down air shocks? I've got a set of street glide shocks off my dads bike sitting here and now you've got me thinking...

 

To wrap up this phase of the build I thought it would be helpful to summarize all the modifications I've done so far. I think I've captured all of the significant items. There were of course countless small things done along the way to make all of this happen. The major mods are listed below.


1. Frame:

• Chopped the frame – added 4 degrees of rake
• Removed unnecessary pieces, parts and brackets, such as the mid control mounting points
• Filled holes and smoothed ugly factory welds
• Drilled the frame for internal wiring
• Welded new tank mounting points
• Added a skid plate made from perferated sheet steel
• Filled hole under seat with perferated sheet steel
• Removed strut covers and smooth finished the struts
• All work done by Ozzie

2. Refinished Engine:

• Stripped the lower engine
• Repainted with HD Texture Black Paint
• Replaced HD hardware with SS Hardware - AlloyBoltz
• I did all of this work

3. Chopped the Cam Cover following the Joebotics Thread - I did the work on this

4. Chopped the Sprocket Cover - this was my handiwork as well


5. Removed Front Fender

• Machined the Fender Mounts from Lower Fork Legs - me

6. Ran the wiring harness through the frame - this was Ozzie...I held his beer while he did it


7. Powder Coated:

• Rocker Covers
• Primary Cover
• Cam Cover
• Sprocket Cover
• Frame and Swing Arm
• Lower Fork Tubes
• Wheels, including Spokes
• Rear Sprocket
• Misc. Hardware
• EZ-Fill Fork Caps – BK Rider

8. Fabricated an Mreed Air Cleaner:

• Modified a Vintage Speed 4” Round Auto Air Cleaner, Cast Aluminum Housing - work done by me
• Bought a K&N Filter

9. Installed Vied’s – Purchased from Nightrider

10. Wilwood Black Brake Discs purchased from Scooter’s Performance


11. Handle Bars - Fabricated by Ozzie

• Dummy lights recessed in bars
• Internal Throttle – purchased from Law Bros. Cycles
• Internal Wiring
• Billet Aluminum Knurled Grips purchased from Speed Dealer Customs
• Oberon Bar End Signals purchased from ebay
• Integrated micro-Switches in bars
• Knurled Bar End Mirror purchased from Speed Dealer Customs

12. Forward Controls:

• Raider, purchased from Amazon
• Billet Aluminum Knurled Pegs and Shifter purchased from Speed Dealer Customs

13. New Lithium Ion Battery purchased from Alien Motion


14. New Black Braided Clutch and Front Brake Cable

• Purchased from Magnum Shielding

15. Coil Relocation – Ozzie fabricated a New Coil Bracket

16. Horn Relocated behind skid plate - fabricated by Ozzie



17. New Exhaust – V&H Blackout 2 into 1, Header Wrap

• Purchased from Dennis Kirk

18. Wide Glide Front End

• Billet Aluminum Triple Clamps purchased from Vulcan
• 16” Front Wheel purchased on ebay
• 150/80x16” Front Tire

19. Upper Fork Tube Covers - Fabricated by me



20. Avon Venom Tires purchased from Jake Wilson

21. New Solo Seat purchased from Mother Road Customs - Antique Orange Alligator Leather


22. Street Glide Shocks

• Purchased on ebay
• Chopped to 10 ¾” by Bitchin Baggers

23. Headlight Stock HD Fliped, Ozzie fabricated a New Mount, Ho/Lo Switch,


24. Chopped Rear Fender:

• LED Tail Light purchased from Chrome Glow
• Relocated ECM

25. Purchased Goodridge Black Braided Oil Lines on Amazon



26. Purchased FLO Oil Filter

27. Modified Left Side Cover Mounting - Fabricated by Ozzie

28. Custom Points Cover Purchased from Figure Engineering


29. Speedo Relocation in Gas Tank - fabricated by Ozzie

• Flush SS Filler Cap purchased from BK Rider

30. License Plate Bracket with Ignition Relocation - fabricated by Ozzie

31. New Zombie Nightster Paint Job - Rattle canned by me

--------------------------
Over 800 miles on it now and no problems to report. Rode 2-up for the first time today. It's a little rough but not bad. Perfectly acceptable for short rides in to town and back. Put 25lbs in the air shocks and rode for about 50 miles. And I don't think it looks half bad like this. However, the solo seat always goes back on immediately after we get home. And the wife loves the DK Customs foot pegs.

 

Hey thanks toast. People come up to me all the time and ask "What kind of bike is that?" It's just different enough to throw a lot of people off.

I like the shocks as a good compromise for lowering the *** end a bit, allowing for occasional 2-up riding and providing an acceptable ride with the solo seat mounted with no springs. Trust me, this is not a touring bike...not a lazy boy on wheels. The ride is stiff, but more than acceptable for me, and that's all that matters. Rough roads can be a bit...rough. But not so bad that it's miserable or intolerable. Today I put about 100 miles on it before switching over to 2-up mode and adding another 50. I was comfortable the whole time, and I don't have much padding on my ***. It's not going to be a top pick for cross country touring comfort. I didn't buy it and then modify it for that. For two or three hours of cruising, in town, on country roads and the occasional interstate sprint, it rides great. I really love riding this thing.

 

So Ozzie and I rode down to the Catskill Mountain Thunder motorcycle rally this morning. Nice rally. Lots of motorcycles of all kinds...mostly Harleys but a good smattering of other makes and metrics. I entered the bike in the show which started about 11am. I had no idea what to expect and no real idea which class I should enter. I had guessed the Sportster Class and told the guy who signed me up it was a Nightster but he took one look at it and said I should enter the "Special Construction" Class, or something like that. I didn't know any better so that's what I did. I was one of the first bikes there around 9am but as the morning wore on the "show bikes" started arriving. And I mean show bikes. My class was filled with radical custom builds in all kinds of weird over the top configurations that a lot of people go gaga over, most of which had to cost upwards of $50k or more. Needless to say, my little Nightster was grossly outclassed. On the other hand, I rode mine there and most of the bikes that won, regardless of class, didn't (though, to their credit some did). Oh, and the 2nd place finisher in the Sportster Class was basically a stock Sporty with a nice paint job. I didn't even pay attention to who the winner was. Oh well.

Not that we had a bad time. It was great, there were lots of really nice rides there and we had a great time cruising the 2 hours down and back. The weather was wonderful, though a bit chilly at 7am. And as I said in an earlier post, I had no illusions about winning anything. I thoroughly enjoyed the day. My only complaint is had I known it was going to be a show bike competition I wouldn't have bothered entering. On the other hand, I had a lot of people pay us some very nice things about the bike. The best was as I was packing up to leave after the show, a guy came up, shook my hand and said pointing at the Nightster - "That's the nicest looking bike here man. I voted for you." Made my day.

Here are some pics:

This is the one that won my class.



This John Deere theme came in 2nd.


Here's the Sporty that came in 2nd in the Sportster Class. It is a nice one.


And here are some of the others.







Like I said, some really nice bikes.

 

I like the John Deere bike but some of the rest are ****in' ugly.

 

I would of put my money on the 07 Nightster.

 

A lot were just cartoon bikes. Way over the top gaudy. Some nice fabrication mixed in there (some of it was horrible work) but only a handful were actually rideable. And ya man, ****in' ugly. I'll know better next time.