Bringing old bikes back to life is among the most rewarding things we do here at the shop. When Dain met the owner of this 1977 FLH Shovelhead at a rural storage facility, we were tasked with just that. He loaded it onto the trailer to bring back to the shop, but not without first learning some of its history.
The bike was originally purchased brand new from A.D. Farrows downtown by the customer’s father. It started life as a gold bike, but years later, it was painted the blue that it is today. At some point in its history, it was parked and sat for some time. Years down the road, the customer’s brother took an interest in the machine and attempted to get it up and running himself. We’re unclear on whether or not he had any success. Our customer acquired the partially disassembled bike from his brother in 2018 and had it in storage since that time.
Further assessment of the bike here at the shop left us, more than anything, surprised by the condition. It is rare to come across a bike that has sat and is in better shape than anticipated, so it was a pleasant surprise, no doubt. After the assessment, we came up with a plan for repair and compiled a parts list. While waiting for the parts to start trickling in, we moved forward with the work we could do in the meantime. We cleaned the carburetor as well as removed, cleaned, and red-coated both fuel tanks. Read an in-depth article on our tank restoration process here.
The taillight, battery cover, lid, and strap were among the parts that were missing entirely. To get the bike running, we ultimately replaced the battery, coil, starter relay, starter solenoid, ignition switch, and installed a carburetor repair kit. To modernize and reduce the need for future adjustments, we replaced the points system with an electronic ignition, a Compu-Fire dual-fire ignition kit.
Addressing the roadworthy items was next. We knew modern-looking tires would negatively impact the overall look, so we went with Classic 240’s by Shinko with a double-white stripe. These tires are designed to meet modern performance expectations while featuring classic-looking designs.
A combination of age and neglect required a thorough servicing of the braking system. Both the front and rear master cylinders were rebuilt with new repair kits. The calipers also had internal replaceable parts swapped out via repair kits. Fresh brake fluid was added, and the bleeding process went quickly thanks to our new Phoenix Systems V5 brake bleeder.
At that point, we met with the customer to determine if any further work was desired. They asked us to polish some of the aluminum parts, such as the primary cover, handlebar clamp cover, and headlight bezel.
If the mechanics had one word for this job, it would be “smooth”. Whenever we venture into work on bikes of this age with similar histories of sitting, it’s expected to expect the unexpected. This job, however, delivered no unanticipated surprises. We love the challenge of our work, but every once in a while, it’s refreshing to have things go just as planned. We found the parts we needed were readily available and, thankfully, didn’t have the need to replace any difficult-to-source parts. These factors combined allowed us to complete our work much quicker than originally projected.
Nearing the completion of our work, we’re excited to see this beauty back on the road!
Have a project you’re interested in having us work on? Call (740) 747-2299 during normal business hours!
