You can do all kinds of neat stuff with Harleys. I bought my girlfriend a crashed 88 Sporty. I turned it into a Fatboy style of bike. It has a FL front end, 16" wheels, Forward controls, Fatbob gas tank & Heritage bars. I rewired the bike and took the wires outside of the headlight bucket and moved them under the tank. It uses a regular Softail dash and ignition. With the tank kit the ignition was supposed to be for looks only but I figured I would clean up all that wiring and run the wires like the Softail uses. It has a FL rear fender, I used the front section of the Sporty fender and welded on a FL fender rear half. The two are connected under the seat. I needed to TIG weld in a little filler piece where the Sporty fender stepped down in size slightly, All painted up the fender looks like a factory piece. The triple trees needed some modifications as well to fit the Sporty frame. It's a blast to ride. It was an 883 but has the 1200 kit on it.

 

Great job! Love the fat front end and tank.

 

Now that is pretty darn cool! Its really awesome to see someone take something out of the ordinary!

 

Nicely done man! Looks great.

 

You did an awesome job on that, it looks really good!

 

she ought to be happy. looks good.

 

Great Job Man.

Wrecked is a great way to go.

 

Very nice work man. At a quick glance it looks like a FATBOY LOL!

 

Thanks for the compliments. It's funny, I picked it up off of e-bay. it was about 1 1/2 hours from my house. The description said "Pick it up or just Ride it home"!!! It was last winter when I won the auction on it and about 20 degrees outside. I could have thrown on my heated clothes but figured I better trailer it, I didn't know how it handled. When I got to the address it turned out to be a gas station that buys and sells vehicles (cars, trucks, motorcycles, campers, anything) It was obvious a lot of stuff around the lot had come from auctions, lot and "row" numbers all over the windshields of the cars. the place was crazy, tow trucks pulling in and out, there were two people waiting to get paid for cars they were turning in to sell. It was run like a high volume pawn shop.

I ask where the bike is and nobody knows, then one guy working said he thought it was in the back garage, We go back there and it's sitting in back of a bunch of crap, riding lawnmower in front of it. We move all the junk in front of it and pull it out. I could easily see the bike was crashed. Headlight smashed sideways, forks bent, turn signals held up by duct-tape wrapped around the mounting standoffs. Tan colored dirt packed in everywhere. It must have went off in a cornfield somewhere.

The battery was dead so I couldn't start it. I looked at the guy and said "The ad said it could be ridden home". He was apologizing up and down telling me his boss was the one who listed it and he doesn't come in on weekends. I clicked it up a few gears and bumped it forward to make sure the motor wasn't seized. It looked like a bike that had been taken care of (before the accident) so I still figured it was worth the $2,500 I paid for it. After paying for it and loading it up, I went home and looked at the auction pictures again. The guy was a master with a camera. All the damage was there to see but he took the pictures on angles where it was very well hidden and easy to overlook.

I would have just told the guy to keep it but I wanted a project bike to tear apart and rebuild, every other Sporty I found was well over $4,000.

In the tech column I'll put some suggestions about fitting this gastank and that FL front end to a Sporty. There are some things that need to be done that the instructions (for the tank anyway) don't tell you.

I ask where the bike is and nobody knew at first then

 

That is a great bike and a great job !!!!!!