Hello I have a 1998 dyna superglide conv and it came with forward controls was wondering what would be the easiest way to go back to mids I called my local Harley dealership and he said by the time he priced all the parts it would cost over 1000$ if anybody knows anything it would be much appreciated thanks

 

I'm going to assume that your bike is similar enough to mine that the same things I discovered will apply to yours, but I admit I don't know if that's the case. If it is the case, then here's what I ran into.

There are two issues with going from forwards to mids on a Twin Cam. The first one is that there are two different versions of the outer primary cover, one for a bike that originally had mid-controls, and a slightly different one for a bike that originally had forwards. The only difference as far as I know is that the mids version has a hole through it for the shift lever's shaft. Where this hole would be on the forwards version is visible in the casting but it is filled in solid. If I remember correctly, there was someone who had gotten this hole bored out and fitted with a bushing by a machinist, but that's not what I did. I tried to find a used mid-controls version so that the paint would match the age of the paint on my engine, but that didn't work out. In the end I got a brand new part, and the part itself looks great but it makes the rest of the engine look worse by contrast.

The second issue I had was caused by my assumption that a trade would be easy to make happen since most people want to go the other way: from mids to forwards. That may be true, but because I didn't know about the issue with the primary cover it wasn't that easy. People going from mids to forwards have the option of just plugging that hole, rather than buying a whole new cover. If their bike and their budget is on a level where they are going to get a new part to make it nice like that, they certainly don't want my old parts in trade. The footrests and controls might be easy to trade, but the whole job isn't because of the cover.

At the time, a new part wasn't available from Harley, not from the dealership and not from the Harley warehouse in Canada. It would have had to have come from manufacturing in the US so I waited to see if the shop could find a person to trade with me. Looking back now, that wasted time and in the end I just got the new part. All told I lost June and July of last year to all of this, and while I should have chosen to buy new from the beginning, I regret nothing. For what I want I want out of my motorcycle, it's not just that mid-controls are better - it's that forwards are completely wrong for me in every way possible. My bike is slowly becoming exactly what I want, and I'm very happy with everything I've changed on it so far. The FP3 was a mistake though, for sure.

 

It has the right primary and everything it would be as simple as taking forwards off and bolting mids on (figure of speech I know there’s more to do then just bolting) but yea I just don’t like the fact if I ever need to put my feet down in an emergency it is quicker with mids while forwards are farther from the ground and your balancing point

 

Even with the correct primary in place, the big problem is that you have to remove both the outer and inner primary to re-install mids on the bike. Not extremely technically difficult, but lots of work. I'd guess that the majority of the price quoted by your dealer is for labor.

Godd luck with whatever you do.

 

Ebay is where I'd look. Can find the whole set up on there cheap