FXR Progress

Made significant progress on the FXR so far this weekend. I was doing pretty good Friday 'till my friend Todd showed up with a case of Oaked Arrogant Bastard. Thanks, dude! You want to see things grind to a halt, chug a couple of those babies. Anyway, the good news is that it runs! That means my stripped down wiring job with the stock ignition module worked, so that has me stoked. Got the tank fitted and a bunch of little details buttoned up. I struggled with ideas for a Bates headlight mount and everything felt way too fussy and too chopperish for this bike. In the end, the stock sporty eyebrow and light (with a flat lens halogen bulb) won out. I dig the look, and I ain't afraid of a little chrome on this thing. McGoo came over today and we dialed in axle spacers and rear pipe mount which is a little bit of a bitch with these rubber-mount engines. I think it's as good as it gets but we'll see after some shakedown miles. Bad news is I'm a dumb ass and got a right side slider off an earlier bike so the late model sporty caliper won't work on the right side. Hopefully I'll find one at Long Beach tomorrow. If not, it'll be a single disc for the Bash and I'll swap it out later. I am digging the late model sporty dual pot calipers though, they are going to be a tight fit with the mags, but cool. Also struggled with bars. This bike likes to be ridden hard into corners so it's begging for a tight flat-tracker bar, but I just can't reach that far (this thing is long!) and I like to ride this bike all day, so as bad as I wanted some stubby race bars, they just wouldn't work. I tried about six different bars from my stash and was actually stoked how comfy the Frisco bars ended up being. I usually run those close to straight up and down, but on a bike this long, they've got to lean back at the same angle as the fork legs. I've run these on the last two bikes so I shouldn't have been surprised that they worked out on this one too. 1 1/2" trimmed off the ends and I'm in business. Also shaved down the controls and the paint is drying now on those. So another hour or two worth of work and I should be shaking it down. If anyone is sitting on a right side 39mm slider with caliper mounts, hit me up! email: billb67@verizon.net

See some of you guys tomorrow at the Long Beach Swap, ask for a sneak peek at the new cast stainless seat hinge...
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