Was installing my floorboard spacers today and this caught my eye. I know nothing about welding but to be it looks like the paint is blistered. Almost like it was rewelded after the fact. Any thoughts????

 

No, that doesn't look normal. You can see that the slag from the added weld is still on the frame. It also looks like the frame was touched up. On all stock frames , you won't see any welding spatter , because they use a different type of weld . That's interesting , and makes me wonder what the hell.

 

Looks like it has been altered.

Is this a used bike?

 

I guess it just shows to go ya how important it is to spend some time looking over the bike you plan
to buy BEFORE signing on the dotted line. Anything more than a casual inspection would have revealed that mess and should have been a deal breaker. What's your dealer saying about that??

 

No it was a brand new bike.

wldbill: I'm pretty good about looking over everything before signing on the dotted line. Things like this you just wouldn't think to look at. I took a ride to the dealer and was showing my sales guy and he said he had something similar on his swingarm. Also looked at a few used 08 models and they had the rough texture in that same area but not the sloppy weld. Gonna stop by and show the service manager during the week and see what he thinks.

 

Looks like the factory is taking short cuts.

 

I just now went out and looked at the same welds on both down tubes on my '02 Utra. They don't look a BIT better than the one on your bike. In fact, they are almost exactly same. While I will admit it's not a beautiful welding job, I really do not think you will have any problems with that frame because of that weld. Do what ever you feel you should do about it, but I'm not gonna lose ANY sleep over mine. Best of luck to ya.

 

looks pretty normal to me for harley frame welds. I have an 04 flhtc and i remember when I got it home I looked it over with a fine tooth comb and was disappointed as I had been riding bmw's years and they always had pefect beads.

 

I have seen worse on new Harleys...is this not the charm of owning a Harley...everything are built with improvment in mind...for me, as that old Harley freak that I am...this is gold.

 

Didn't mean to bag on you, it goes for all of us. I mostly looked for scratches and paint flaws. I'll admit that now after 10 months I've looked over my 09 RG, again because of these "bad weld" posts of which yours is not the first..
From looks of my frame HD's new 09 frames go together really well and much better than the engine guards.