Sorry if its been discussed Ive searched but I know different years have different belt sizes so I was unsure what applied to my 2002. In any event I'm looking for a good handling set of black walls and would like to get a wider tire for the rear. I used a spacer kit for my deuce that allowed me to run a 180mm tire. I was wondering if I needed one for my Electra to do the same. I saw some posts that said a 150mm tire could be used and other that said a 160mm tire would fit depending upon the brand. I also plan on lowering the bike an inch if this comes into play. Any help on this is appreciated. Thanks, Louis

 

Louis, I wouldnt go wider than a 150mm tire. You can buy all kind of kits, but as a shop owner, they aint worth the trouble. I would run a Metzler 880. PM me if I can help.

 

The widest I can run on my '02 is a 140 Metz. But....the belt does rub on the sidewall when I'm backing the bike up. It rubs enough/hard enough that it actually polishes the sidewall. I switched back to a 130 last year. Will stick with a 130 this year as well.

A 150 most likely won't fit without making some significant changes. I think they went to a 140 in '04 or '05, but they also switched to a narrower drive belt & pullies.

Good luck.

 

plus one

 

A good friend with an '03 FLHTCU bought a set of take-off '06 Road Glide wheels and tires (rear tire OEM Dunlop 402 MU85B-16) and it rubbed the belt guard. IIRC, he trimmed the guard to eliminate the rubbing.

The change in rear tire size was the '04 model year when HD went from 130mm tire to 140mm.

 

I put a 150x18 Avon on my 2002 FLHTC about 2 years ago, but I had to use the spacer. That`s all you can get in there with the spacer.

 

This is what I used to run a 150 on a 03 Road King.

http://www.pingelonline.com/rear_sprocket_spacer.htm

I had to drill out the rivots on the belt guard to remove the 1/8 spacer on it because it did rub a little only when backing the bike up...Hope this helps...

 

I would recommend the Dunlop Elite 3 for best durability and performance, but they are only available in BW. These have rapidly gained popularity with the HD community in the past year or two and were originally designed for Gold Wings to address wear issues while providing excellent handling characteristics. My present rear tire has 16k on it now with probably another 4k of tread remaining (4/32" now), and the best I ever managed out of a D402 on this bike was 10k. Performance is excellent in wet and dry, and you can read more testimonials by searching this forum.

I'm not sure what size would be best for your bike, but the available sizes (rear) are MT90-16, MU90-16, and 160-80-16. The latter barely fits newer bikes, but I wouldn't want to venture a guess on an '02. I'm running an MU90-16 which has nearly identical dimensions as a stock (for '07) MU85-16. I have an MT90-16 (stock size) on the front.

 

I put a 140 Avon on my 03 and it was close (1/8") to the belt. I am re-building my bike completely now uing a 21/18 set-up and a 150 tire. I put a later model 1 .125 pully and belt on, have good clearance. Another issue you have is the fender clearance on the left side of the rear fender, a lot of guys (myself included) fenders are "Off" center with the tire, being closer on the left side than the right. I don't think anything much larger tan a 160 would fit with spacers, changing to a smaller belt, etc. At some point you gotta change the fender.