Harley Sportster - part three

It can now stop and It's going down...

• BikeRebuild
• HarleyDavidson
• Sportster

You must have been eagerly awaiting the third thrilling instalment of the Harley Sportster story - last thing you heard it was in bits and John was trying to work out how to put it all back together again. Well this week, with some help from some rubber gloves, he has made progress! It's going!  

Here's a link to the last two thrilling episodes one & two, and here's what he has been doing...
You may recall the bike was a tad challenged in the brake department – well John set about tackling this.  First of all he found out that the last frost had brought on a nasty case of 'nipple snap' so he started by drilling the old one out and replacing it. Then he added a new set of DP brake pads specially formulated for Harleys, and a new brake hose (Hel brake hose will soon be listed to the bike!).

The old brake hose was quite perished so he got a new Hel brake hose made. This was also necessary as he was changing the bars from high ones to drag bars so the new brake hose had to be much shorter – in fact about 20 inches shorter – yes inches – we are travelling back in weights and measures time to Harley land.

All this brake attention has helped considerably, the big beast does actually stop now without wearing too much off John's Cuban heels :0)

All in all he is finding the bike easy to work on – the only problem is that, not having had a Harley before,( Passola, Vmax, Ducati, 3 Brosses, 3 Superdreams, Katana, 400Four, Goldwing to name but a few, this is a man who has had many bikes) his nut and bolt box is metric so not too clever when he loses a nut - note to self - buy a magnetic nut tray so that the original ones don't disappear into the garage floor never to be seen again!

One word to the wise – he has found that using disposable gloves (Glovely jubbly), has been brilliant and saved a lot of Swarfega and also eye protectors have kept chips and crud out of his eyes while he's been working so he still looks like Paul Newman, as you can see from his photo last week.
Watch this space... Next time  – a new and wonderful petrol cap and the lowering of the bike – new shocks – and it's going out for a spin, oh many exciting things happening!
Thanks very much for all your comments up till now – got any more thoughts, advice, tips, abuse...all comments welcome
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