Does anyone know the difference in width (on center) of a 39mm narrow glide front end (05 FXDX) and a 49mm mid glide front end (08 FXDB)?

I am pondering something (thats what happens when I sit in Iraq with nothing to do)...tell me what you think.

I am thinking about using a set of mid glide 49mm front trees (I actually want the integrated risers) with 39mm tubes and sliders. I would so this by having my local machine shop make me a set of bushings with a 39mm ID and 49mm OD that are the thickness of the tree itself with a slice down the side. This would allow me to install these onto the forks then into the 49mm trees. I could then get rid of the ugly top mounted headlight, sloppy looking upper tree and mount a set of mini apes flush to the trees.

I am aware that I would need a longer axle and do some custom work down there, but thats all easy.

Maybe I am just thinking stupid here...

 

I believe the mid glide is 8 and 5/8" whereas the narrow is 6 and 5/8"

At least that's what is quoted on some websites that offer mid glide conversion kits.

 

I think a mid glide conversion kit would be better. Accutronix and custom cycle engineering make good ones with everything you would need for the conversion.

 

But its not really the midglide i want so bad, its more just a cleaned up upper tree and the integrated risers. I have a set of mini apes sitting in my garage that I bought cheap on craigslist and I am just dieing to put them on one of our bikes...and my drag bars look cooler on my softail anyway. I could even deal with a set of stubby 1" risers, but I'm just being too cheap to just go buy a set of cleaner looking 39mm narrow glide trees. 08 Street Bob trees are dirt cheap, they include the risers and its already set for a bottom mount headlight.

 

yeah but the spacers and such will be needed to fit the mid glide, along with a new axle. You end up paying about as much to convert(or more) as you do to just get some new trees. A axle is over 100 bucks then you need the spacer for the brake disc as well as spacers for the wider front. IMHO I think you should drill your bottom tree and get the trim plate that Harley puts on the sportster custom(which runs your trees with a bottom mount light). The trim plate is cheap and you can go to H-D website and look at the customs to see what I mean. The Harley plate flows a lot better than the headwinds one too. Then you can get the trees and plate powdercoated black.

 

Remove the top tree and grind off the visor mounts. Then you can spend some more time on the grinder cleaning up and rounding off all the sharp edges/corners on the top and bottom tree. Finish it off by polishing up to a nice shine and drilling the lower tree for a bottom mount headlight. Nothing to it, just takes a little time and elbow grease. Best of all, it's free with the exception of buying a new headlight. The only other issue is your riser problem. You can either run some simple short risers like Biltwell sells, or have some custom chimps fabbed up with built-in threaded risers. Pretty standard stuff you're dealing with and you're not looking at much money.


http://www.biltwellinc.com/risers.php

Built-In risers, no biggie:


http://frontstcycle.blogspot.com/


Before:


After a little elbow grease and a Lot of grinding:


If the pics don't show up, here is a link:
http://www.jockeyjournal.com/forum/s...3265&showall=1

 

Ok, so I think maybe using midglide trees may be more hassle than its worth.

Can anyone tell me if this will work on a superglide?

http://www.arlenness.com/p-1587-xl-t...up-polish.aspx

I know both bikes use 39mm trees and are narrowglide front ends, what other differences would there be?

 

It's not going to match your bottom tree and I don't know if all the other components are the same between the FXD and XL. (bearings, stem size, etc...)

 

Do you mean it wont match astetically? I know it doesnt match perfectly, but it appears to match pretty well. I was planning on painting the trees black anyway, so they will probably match pretty well once the top and bottom are both black.

 

I think the ness top tree will work fine. the xl and dyna are the same 39mm trees except the lowrider had rake in it's trees.