So - the front of my Dyna is more or less finished. Buck bars fitted, longer brake line / clutch cable, relocated turn signals and black painted fork lowers with slightly lowered front fender. It's taken some time but I've had to fit it all in between work and family commitments.

Time now to turn my attention to the back end. As some of you may know I live "across the pond" in the UK where we have the ugliest reg plates (licence - sorry license) plates ever devised! Having one of those things sitting bolt upright above the rear light is not a thing of aesthetic beauty that's for sure! It's been my intention to sort out that particular piece of design travesty since I bought the bike back in Oct 2009 so today I set to work.

First off was choosing a rear light to replace the original, we're pretty fussy about the legality of this kind of thing over here so whatever I bought it had to be "E" marked - i.e meet European regs! I looked at a whole bunch of tail lights, none of which particularly "floated my boat" until I saw one advertised at the weekend so I sent off for it and it arrived today - and it's a quality bit of kit. It may end up being powder coated black along with the four chrome turn signals - we'll see how it looks when it's all together and make a decision then

Some photos of progress so far - we're far from finished here but I think even as it is now there's a vast improvement over the orignal set up. The final version will have about 4 inches cut off the bottom of the rear fender (if for no other reason than to make rear wheel removal easier!) and the light bracket will be mounted underneath to hide the bottom part of it. I'll need to cut a slot in the fender to do that. There will also be a slghtly smaller licence plate - the smallest we can probably get away with here is 8" x 6" in place of the legal 9" x 7"

You'll note that the backrest has gone. I still need that for when I take the missus out on the bike so I'm making up my own version of a quick release fastening for that - not sure how it's going to be done yet but I have a few ideas. Eventually the seat will be replaced with something better looking than the comfy but hideous looking thing that's on there now. I'm also making up some turn signal brackets that will match the front ones that I made a few weeks ago (last pic in the attached photos)........I love fettling with my Harley!

So that's where I'm at presently - here's some pictures

Derv

 

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So - the front of my Dyna is more or less finished. Buck bars fitted, longer brake line / clutch cable, relocated turn signals and black painted fork lowers with slightly lowered front fender. It's taken some time but I've had to fit it all in between work and family commitments.

Time now to turn my attention to the back end. As some of you may know I live "across the pond" in the UK where we have the ugliest reg plates (licence - sorry license) plates ever devised! Having one of those things sitting bolt upright above the rear light as shown in the first shot below is not a thing of aesthetic beauty that's for sure! It's been my intention to sort out that particular piece of design travesty since I bought the bike back in Oct 2009 so today I set to work.

First off was choosing a rear light to replace the original, we're pretty fussy about the legality of this kind of thing over here so whatever I bought it had to be "E" marked - i.e meet European regs! I looked at a whole bunch of tail lights, none of which particularly "floated my boat" until I saw one advertised at the weekend so I sent off for it and it arrived today - and it's a quality bit of kit. It may end up being powder coated black along with the four chrome turn signals - we'll see how it looks when it's all together and make a decision then

Some photos of progress so far - we're far from finished here but I think even as it is now there's a vast improvement over the orignal set up. The final version will have about 4 inches cut off the bottom of the rear fender (if for no other reason than to make rear wheel removal easier!) and the light bracket will be mounted underneath to hide the bracket. I'll need to cut a slot in the fender to do that. There will also be a slghtly smaller licence plate - the smallest we can probably get away with here is 8" x 6" in place of the legal 9" x 7"

You'll note that the backrest has gone. I still need that for when I take the missus out on the bike so I'm making up my own version of a quick release fastening for that - not sure how it's going to be done yet but I have a few ideas. Eventually the seat will be replaced with something better looking than the comfy but hideous looking thing that's on there now. I'm also making up some turn signal brackets that will match the front ones that I made a few weeks ago (last pic in the attached photos)........I love fettling with my Harley!

So that's where I'm at presently - here's some pictures

Derv

 

Looking good so far, keep going at it, it never ends....

 

That rear taillight looks weird, any pics from behind, like the front sig brackets

 

Man they are torturing you guys with them plates!! No offense, but that definitely kills the bike. On the other hand your turn sig re-location kicks butt!!

 

I never gave it much thought but I appreciate our plates now. Bummer, dude.

 

Yeah Hommes - they're bad eh? Most of Europe have pretty ugly plates compared to the U.S and Canada but British ones must be the worst of the lot. I think they look pretty bad on Harleys with them stuck up perpendicular above the tail light, it really spoils the lines of the bike even with a decent looking plate. I never did figure out why most HDs are like that, unless it's to do with some legal requirement that they have to be a specific distance from the ground?

The worst though is when you see our UK plates on exotic supercars like Ferrari and Masserati..........it just seems wrong somehow. Fortunately for the classic car / bike guys here, they can still use our old pre 1972 white or silver letterng on a black background which doesn't look too bad.

Derv

 

I really like the relocated front signal brackets you made, but you guys certainly drew the short straw on the license plates over there..

 

funny the size of european license plates is the only reason I can come up with that has the US coming out on top in recent years.