I’m almost done with my recent mods on my ’07 Road King ex-cop bike. I got the performance squared away last year, when I built the motor out 107.

That build included 10.7 compression forged pistons, Woods TW8 cams, SE ported heads, SE throttle body, VPC clutch, 30t trans pulley, tuned with tts. I posted a thread on the build with a bunch of pictures, if anyone is interested in what’s involved in a top end rebuild on a twinkie.

This year, I started out with upgrades to the rolling stock. I really wanted to change the rear tire to a 180, and install a better looking front wheel. After looking at a bunch of custom bikes last summer, I decided on a 23” front wheel. Although most guys installing 23” front ends are simply bolting on a set of trees and calling it good, I’m of the opinion that you also need to rake the frame for anything bigger than a 19” front wheel.

My front end mods consists of a 7 degree frame rake, with minimal stretch, 7 degree HHI billet trees, 1” fork extensions, six piston single-side Jay Brake caliper, Arlen Ness wheel, Avon tire, and an HHI fender. This was all purchased while the bike was still a Road King. I hadn’t made the decision to to the RG conversion yet.

First thing to do is strip the bike down and whack the neck off. This doesn’t take long once you’ve done it a few times. Maybe a couple of hours to strip it down, but it wound up taking about 6 months to put it back together.

I stripped the frame down to the neck, and marked my cut line with masking tape.



I enlisted one of my brothers to give me a hand cutting the neck off. We used a porta-band, which is a slick way to go, but it helps to have two sets of eyes watching the cut on both sides of the neck.

If we had a DIY show on tv, it would be called “Graybeard’s Garage”. lol



With the neck cut off, you insert a block that has the additional rake already built in. You can fab one of these up yourself, with some 2-1/2” square tubing, or buy it pre-made from Yaffe or Pickard. This one came from Pickard, but the next time I do one of the 08-older frames, I’m just going to weld one up myself.



Mock up is critical when you’re raking one of these touring bikes. You need to make sure you’ve got sufficient clearance between the fork lock and the tank. When I started this project, I was planning on assembling it as a Road King, so that’s how I mocked it up. The touring bikes have that big ignition switch, and interference between dash and ignition switch can be a problem, unless you factor it in.



With the neck off, the backbone insert gets welded into place, then covered in sheet metal to bring the surface flush to the original frame.







You can see the original VIN is still intact. The weld-on necks for the 08-older frames leave a little window for the VIN to show through, but to me, that’s just a big red flag to the DMV if you ever need a vehicle inspection. Raking the neck with an insert leaves everything looking pretty much like stock. Functionally, though, it doesn’t matter if you use a weld-on neck, or an insert. The insert involves a little more welding and fabrication, but it’s also less expensive.




Either way, you significantly strengthen the neck of your frame, and the billet trees bring much needed stability to the fork legs. This is a big reason why a raked bagger rides and handles so much better than stock. If it’s done right, it will feel like it’s on rails.

With the raked front end, you either need to install a raked headlight adapter, or a raked nacelle or fairing. I had a cheap ebay nacelle that I modified to fit over the HHI trees, and raked it to compensate for the additional 10 degrees of overall rake



I reassembled the front end, including my Dragonfly fairing, and went for a ride to make sure everything was good. This was back in February or March. If I’d just stopped here, I would have saved a whole bunch of time and money.

 

Phase II: 180 rear tire

This part of the build is pretty straightforward. On a 07, you need a wider rear fender, custom spacers, and either upgrade the rear brakes to the 08 style, or install a 18 inch rear wheel. I did both (18 inch rear wheel, and newer style brakes). If you’ve got an 02-06 bike, you’ll also need to change to a 1” drive belt.

The fender is an obvious requirement, the problem with rear brake-to-rim clearance becomes painfully obvious the first time you try to mount up the wider rear wheel. The old style caliper is just too dang big. It will barely fit inside an 18 inch wheel, but even then, it’s an exercise in frustration when you’re mounting or dismounting the wheel.

The 180 rear tire is a really nice upgrade for the older bikes. It’s substantially wider than the stock tire.


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It would be simple to change the rear wheel, if there’s no sheet metal on the back of the bike. You can just roll it into place. With the fender on the bike , if you have the old style caliper, you just about need to install a wide wheel with the brake pads removed from the caliper. That gives you enough wiggle room to hoist everything up into place, insert the spacers and axle, then replace the brake pads into the caliper. It’s just a huge pain in the ***, and this was the final straw that got me going on the rear brake upgrade.


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I’d already made spacers for the original caliper, so it was just a matter of measuring the difference in width between the old caliper and the new. The new style caliper mount is narrower where the axle stabs the mount. I subtracted the difference between the old and the new, and reduced my spacer by that amount. Then I opened up the caliper mount to accept the 1” axle.



I had already picked up a Klock Werks rear fender off ebay some months ago. All it needed was a little custom touch. I frenched in the license plate pocket and welded on the side fillers. My biggest beef with the KW rear fender is the cheesy way the side fillers are bolted on, which either leaves a gap between filler and fender, or the paint on your fender gets scratched up from rubbing.

 

Phase III Road King to Road Glide

So about halfway through the rear end conversion, a Road Glide fairing dropped into my lap. I wasn’t completely happy with the way my Dragonfly fairing was fitting over the aftermarket fiberglass nacelle, and I was definitely getting tired of not having hand controls for the stereo.

The parts list for this conversion is pretty extensive. You need the inner and outer fairing, the main fairing bracket, the radio support bracket, the lower fairing supports (that attach between the turn signals and the crash bar), the speedo/tach nacelle and bezel, the gauges, indicator lights, radio, and interconnect harness. If purchased new from HD, everything would probably run to about 5500 bucks.

Mine was an ebay find, and it just happened to be about a two hour drive away. I called the seller, and negotiated a buy-it-now price. It’s a low mile take-off from a 2010 RG custom, the guys’ wife decided she’d rather have a street glide, so they pulled all the RG front end parts off and sold them. Fortunately for me, they left everything pretty much intact, including the radio and gauges.





It was complete with the interconnect harness, all gauges, radio, brackets, headlights, etc. Everything I needed to install a Road Glide front end on my bike, except for a way to connect the fairing harness into the main harness.
Road King main harnesses don’t have provision to connect to the fairing interconnect. I either had to figure out a way to patch in the wiring I needed in the fairing (a common solution), or try and wire the interconnect into my existing main harness (way beyond my abilities), or just simply remove the RK main harness and install a main haness for a fairing bike. Installing a new ‘Glide main harness wound up being the route I took. It sounds a little daunting at first, but really is a pretty simple operation.

First, you need to strip the old harness off the bike. I shopped ebay for a couple of weeks, but didn’t come across a main harness for a decent price that didn’t look all beat to ****. So I bit the bullet, and ordered a new one. I figured another 600 bucks wasn’t going to break the bank on this already over-budget build, and I didn’t want electrical trouble down the road.

Here’s the new main harness and the interconnect:



And, after about three or four hours of messing around with it over a couple of evenings, here’s the main harness on the bike:



Because my bike is raked, I needed to source a main fairing bracket for a raked application. Next time, I’m going to just modify the stock fairing bracket, but this time around, I bought a main bracket and hidden support bracket from AF Kustoms So with the bike stripped back down again (you do a lot of that with these builds), I started working on the fairing.




I had to play around with the bracket a little to get the angle I wanted. Once that was squared away, it was a matter of installing my inner support bracket, and the interconnect harness:






Instead of the usual lower fairing supports, I'm using an internal fairing brace, from AF Kustoms. This is a really stout piece, and it makes dealing with a raked fairing a lot easier.


I’d sent my tins out for paint, and finally, was able to start putting this thing back together. The one semi-tense moment came when I put the battery back in, and started checking to see if there was going to be any electrical issues. Between the new main harness, the fairing interconnect, re-wiring my Yaffe Monkey bars (for the second time), and custom wiring in the rear taillights, there was a lot of places for electrical gremlins to hide. I do have a minor issue with my taillights to fix, but other than that, everything looks good, at least so far.




So, after about six months of messing around, I’m almost back on the road. I still need to get the last of my tins back from paint (the frame covers, one saddlebag lid, and one upper filler), and do the last little bit of sorting. Still need to bleed the brakes, change the oil and make sure it’s ready to ride. I’ve already missed a whole lot of good riding this spring, but I’m really happy with the way it turned out.

I know a lot of guys would just trade in their Road King and buy a Road Glide, but I enjoy the challenge. I tried to keep the bike as pure Harley as possible, so the next owner can still work on the bike with just a service manual. No cobbled together wiring harness or controls, virtually all of the upgrades are off the newer bikes. I got a 180 rear tire, six gallon gas tank, a much better looking back end, hand controls for the HD stereo, better ride and handling, and a bike that (at least in my eyes) lands somewhere in-between a traditional HD touring bike and a custom bagger.









This probably wraps up the upgrades to this bike. I may add some more color to the paint at a later time, but that's about it. With the raked front end, I could install a 26" wheel and tire, if I wanted. All I'd have to do would be to change the fender and front brakes. I wound up putting on a single side, six piston Jaybrake caliper and 11.8" rotor. It's ok, but I really should upgrade it to a 13" rotor, which would require another new caliper. It's workable as it is, but the lever pull is noticibly stiffer.

 

Very nicely done! That bike looks awesome, and what a perfect start from a cop bike.

The RG front end was the perfect way to go too!

Well done!

 

Thanks. The bike's come a long way from the original Sheriff's Green FLHP.

The great thing about the touring bikes is that the chassis is the same throughout the model line, and it's pretty straightforward to do an upgrade like this. There was a minimum of fabrication, almost everything was bolt-on.

 

Wow! Well done! That's quite a transformation.

 

Great job. Just whacked the neck on a 02 wish i had made the block instead of the neck kit. Much cleaner looking!! Next one LOL

 

Great bike and well done!!! Love it

For the caliper, maybe there is a bracket to work with a 13" rotor?

now just waiting for your next mods...

 

It is quite a transformation. And you're right about the touring platform. My bike used to be a CVO Street Glide. This past winter, it became a 1-off 2010 CVO RGC!

Such fun projects these bikes turn out to be. Cutting/welding the neck like that is pretty awesome too, and it looks like you did it the way it should be done and didn't cut corners.

Again, that's some good work!

 

We need a good pic with the front fender on. Nice work.