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You must have lived in or near St. Louis , Mo then . If so do you remember the Osborn shop ? I haven't been to St. Louis in twenty years but I spent a lot of time working in that shop . I believe it's gone now . The origanal prototype softail was engineered near that shop . The first couple types didn't work well at all . I saw one that they tried to mount a single vertical shock near the center post under the seat . That one was death waiting to happen . Then they tryed mounting it like the 90's dirtbikes do ( Up top under the fuel tank ) but there wasn't enough room . Their biggest problem was the reverse acting shock they needed had to be a custom built coilover type . You can see in the picture that this frame had only one shock . Nuff of that ... I have had a 84 softail since new and I blew out my right knee trying to kick it with points in it in 86 . It threw me over the bars into a fence I weighed around 200 at that time . Now I tip the scales at 275 and still can't kick it enough to fire it . I have twenty eight inch goosenecks on it , a belt primary , crane HI4 - single fire with dual coils and a S&S Super B 1-7/8ths with a super bowl kit . Lots more mods but that's the gist of it . I can stand on the kicker and it'll let me down nice and slow . It dyno's at 98 hp . They do look good but I wouldn't count on firing it if you have any compression at all left and the battery dies . Just my 14-1/2 cents due to inflation -Randy
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