I expect a build thread

 

Fair enough. Maybe when I get my **** put together we can meet in Columbus or something.

 

Sounds like a plan

 

figured id show my plate and add a few things to note about the Digital Dynamics curved plate mount.

This plate mount retails for around $130 I believe. Great quality and great powdercoat finish. It forms to the rear fender nicely once all 4 mounting bolts are torqued down. It is super bright and really cleans up the *** end of the bike. My complaint is it's poorly designed. Why on earth wouldn't they machine channels for the wire lay in ? When the mount is attached securely it stresses those wires a horrible amount and I can see some of the wire shrouding is already damaged. It appears they used 22 guage wire which is smaller than what harley uses and I'll be interested to see how long it lasts once it is installed for good. Lots of plate trimming involved aswell ( at least for my Ohio plate) and the hardware supplied is useless.

overall I'm happy with it, I just wish for that much money it was more thought out.

tomorrow I hope to install my fork tubes as well as other things. Then I'll do a quick powdercoat write-up for those who asked.

 

Is that a Cycle Visions plate? I had similar issues with my CV lighted plate. (just white light, no signals/brake)

 

It's from custom dynamics. I love it and it's insanely bright. But it has it's short comings for sure .

 

Took some pics of an easy powdercoat piece I just finished.

if anyone is interested in starting to powdercoat do it. You will be about $300 in the hole but it pays for itself in no time. In fact, the reason I havnt posted recently is I've been slammed powdercoating club members bikes.

so for the sake of your question, I use an Eastwood dual voltage gun , an Eastwood oven, and Eastwood or prismatic powder. In my opinion both work well and are comparable.

powdercoating is so ****ing easy. But some parts take more dedication than others.


Here is the beauty ring for the new light that is going on my bike. It's straight out of the package from harley and the finish on it is perfect. Powdercoating shows all defects on the substrate so the condition of this part really made this an easy job. I only have about 5 minutes (not including oven time) into this piece.


Since this piece won't be seeing any abuse and will be behind a weather proof piece of glass and gasket, there is no reason in scuffing or etching it with a wire wheel or media. I use Eastwood pre prep spray. This stuff last forever, isn't too expensive and really does a great job (I can pick it up locally too).

simply wipe the piece of leaving no finger prints or oils. After that I threw it on an oven rack.

I generally try to hang parts because you dont get the "grill" marks and you don't have to deal with the faraday pain in the *** as much. Make sure your grounding wire is touching the substrate, charge the part by holding a button and blast away. There really is no skill involved. It's very forgiving. Once you have a good coverage. Throw it in the oven

Here is the ring covered and put in the oven. Generally I set the oven to 450° wait for it to fill out and then drop the oven down to 400 and set the timer for 20 min. However the correct way is to wait for the substrate to reach 400° then start your timer.

Here you can see the piece has "filled out " aka gotten shiney. I checked the temperature of the substrate until it reached 400° then set the time for 20 min.

After 20 mins your part comes out like glass. And you no longer have to look at chrome on your bike.

now this was an easy and quick example. Generally it takes much longer. ESPECIALLY if you don't have a media blaster. Etching the surface before powdercoating is very important to ensure proper adhesion. Generally the process takes very long and looks something like this:

clean part from oils
pre prep rub down
outgas (can take up to 45 min)
pre prep rub down again / media blast
mask off
pre prep rub down
hang parts
Powdercoat
let bake.

you can have a lot of time invested in one part. So it's generally cheaper to do lots of parts at once.

hope that helped.

 

I'm back from the dead. Alot of stuff has happened but not too much on the bike.

firstly . I've been busy as hell doing powdercoating work. So much so that I've stopped taking in business until I can catch up. Read the above post
This **** pays for its self 10 fold.


after I finish this batch I'm done and it's time to focus on the bike. I graduate next week and I need to start putting everything together so I can ride it home and continue to work on it at my shop. This wouldn't have been the case, but big bears lead time was not very accurate. I did receive all my fxrt parts and I have alot to say about them but won't do a full review until I bolt everything up and test it for a few weeks. If your looking into buying an fxrt kit. Wait for my in depth review on big bears product towards the end of this thread.

I thought I had a better picture of all the stuff layed out in my garage but I guess not. This will have to do. Everything came packaged super well and in 4 or 5 boxes. I ordered fairings, bags, chin spoiler, and the exhaust. Every inch of my car is loaded with parts. Brackets, fenders, gas tank, etc.

the next thing I did on my bike was finish the bars.

Really disappointed I don't have more pictures of the process. It's was a royal pain in the ***. After I extended the wires I had to wire everything through my bars. But before I did that I wanted to shroud the wires like the factory harness. This meant I had to take off the factory connectors without damaging them. I tried everything. I used sewing needles, jewellers screw driver, and a terminal removal tool. But I found that thumb tacks work the best and the fastest. I'll never buy a terminal tool again. After I got all that **** off I ran the wires through the bars using compressed air and string. Tie your string to your wires. Mask off all holes except the two your using, insert the string and blow the compressed air through the bars. The string will come out the other hole . All you gotta do is pull. Oh and use plenty of lube , I used wd40.

after I got the bars situated I decided to go ahead and extend my forks. I went with the wide glide tubes which are 2 over.

This is the one thing I didn't fully replace. My forks have 3000 miles on them so I didn't bother replacing the bushings. The wear seen here is normal and nothing to worry about. I did replace seals however.

Here is the difference in length between the tubes. ****ing bummed because I had to buy fork boots again. But not that big of a deal. The amount of times I've taken this front end apart is getting annoying though haha.

So here is how my bike sat at the beginning of today. Forks installed (no sliders or boots as I had to order them). Bars installed for good. alot of things left untorqued and in need of finalizing though. Peep that derby cover too.

so since I've ran out of time at school because of big bears ....rather slow execution of my order. I had to go ahead and make the decision that I need to make my bike rideable by the end of next week so i can get it to my house and continue the build there. This means everything working, light wiring functional but temporary, and all fairings installed. I'd also like to have my bike tuned with new exhaust.

in order to install the fairing you need to have your headlight installed in working. Big bear offers no written instructions so good luck.


I wrote out my own instructions and decided it was time to cut the connector off my stock headlight and solder it to my new LED light.

I'm generally against cutting factory wiring but for this application this is the best way. I didn't bother to stagger my cuts as the wiring will be hidden in the frame. I did make sure to make my solder job as clean as possible though.

once I got to my bike this morning, I disassembled the front end and put on my fork sliders and new longer fork boots. This allowed me to re torque everything and make sure it was all to spec.


Installed everything including the grips and levers. So happy with how the wires are hidden. Looks so clean. Sitting on the bike the bars and mids are a hellish ( amazing) combination and it really feels inspiring as far as hard riding goes. I installed my tank and the instrument panel back on. I need it to ride home obviously, but I want to make sure the clearance between my fairing and the tank is perfect. I'm so stoked on the look of my bike right now I could honestly say **** the fairing.

one of the things I'm most excited about with this build is my Big Bear exhaust. The welds are enough to make me want to buy another one to hang it on my wall. It's perfection. And it looks amazing on my bike.

Here you can see the exhaust and how clean my bars are now (still need to clamp down the brake and throttle cables). I still need to adjust the heat shield as the clamps hit my cam cover. I can't put the actual can part on because big bear sent me the wrong bracket. Hopefully they 2 day air it to me as I'm running out of time and I'm pretty pissed off about that. I'll get some close ups of the welds tomorrow. I'm also really liking my factory paint right now with the black scheme I have going on.

tomorrow I will throw my rear fender and bags on (aswell as sissy bar) and torque my shocks down. This will allow me to wire my plate/ rear lights. And once that's done I can install my fairing and headlight.

big bear is building my shocks right now so I won't have them for another 2 weeks I assume so the stock shocks will do for now.

I'll try and post progress tomorrow if my schedule allows it.

 

Yes!

Great write up thanks for taking the time to snap pics and lay out the process!

 

Really great and detailed build ! Can't wait to see the finished bike !...b.