Got a long story for you guys about my bike project. Started off as an almost stock 97 Dyna Convertible. Older gentleman bought it new and put 8k mi on it over 20 years I bought it 7 years ago to ride with my dad. Well, we can’t ever leave anything alone so we bought a lift and started making some changes to it Started with forward controls, bars, heavy breather and exhaust. Was going to leave it at that but didn’t like the Mickey mouse gauges so installed a Motogadget digital display in the top clamp, cams and head work and put a solo seat on it. Had it looking nice and my dad decided to enter it in a local car show for fun bc his friend was showing his baby blue Chevy. It was a fan vote show and the bike actually placed top 10 out of over 50 cars! So my dad took it to a few more shows and it placed at another one.

Well, this inspired me to do exactly what I shouldn’t do and dumped a whole bunch of money into it. Goal was to make a custom bike on a Harley frame. Decided on a springer front end, custom wheels, performance machine brakes, Motogadget turn signals on the end of the grips and rears relocated to the shock mounts, bars, new headlight, chrome inner primary and chrome swing arm. Goal was to get it installed over the winter at a local shop owned by a friend of my dad’s and also had done the cam when I sent the heads off to Big Boyz to be ported and milled down. Plan was while the bike was in the shop I could mock up a few tanks and fenders and get an idea of what I wanted to do metalwork wise.

This is when the project took a turn for the worse. What was supposed to take three months ended up taking 2.5 years!! Easy way to put it is the guy who owned the shop didn’t know what he was doing and I found this out after the bike was tore apart and in pieces. For starters he had taken the money I put down for parts and spent it on bills to keep his shop going. It took over a year to come up with the money to get the wheels and front end ordered. Then the progress was super slow and it was apparent he didn’t know how to really do this extensive of a job. I wanted to fire him multiple times but he was a friend of my father and I was asked to not rock the boat.

Got it back finally two years ago and I could tell there were multiple things wrong with it and it wasn’t safe to ride. It really took the wind out of my sails on the project so it sat for two years in a storage unit. I had contacted a couple shops about it and they didn’t want to touch it. Then I saw a friend who was a lead tech at a Harley dealership started his own shop. I had stopped by the dealership a couple years ago looking for him but found out he had moved on and he wasnt on social media at the time. Luckily a friend had tagged his shop in a post and I saw it! I contacted him and told the story and he said bring it up and he will get it straightened out. So I loaded it on the trailer that weekend and hauled it the 3hrs to his shop. He had to pull the harness out of the frame and rewire the bike completely, reset the wheels bc the spacing was off and fixed a bunch of other things. He said the wheels would have locked up with how they were done so I made the right decision to park it.

Got it back two weeks ago and finally was able to ride it after nearly 5 years!! It is such a relief to have this bike back on track. It’s been one of those things eating at me but I’m glad I stayed patient and got someone I trusted. I can’t say enough good things about how skilled the tech who fixed this bike is. He did the tear down of the bike and put back together correctly and rewired it in two weeks! Even went on a four day vacation during that time lol. His experience and skills really showed on this one lol.

So here we are…I have my custom “show bike” back on track. Already planning the next phase of things for the late winter early spring. Looking at spring seats from mother road customs. I will also have my tech go through the engine as well and check all the upgrades were done correctly before we move onto tank and rear fender.

Thanks for reading my long story!

 

Thats a sweet looking Convertible. I have a mostly bone stock 95 FXDS, they are a great machine.

 

Man You have a lot of patience.. Glad to see you stuck with it and found a decent shop.. Good luck and ride safe.. Bike looks very nice.. How does it handle?

 

It rides nice but the turning radius has definitely changed. The narrow front end with the upgraded springs I installed was definitely more suited for hard riding. I understood this would change with springer front end. With the intention of this becoming mostly a show type bike…I’m ok with this.