Before undergoing extensive modifications, this eye-catching “orange crush” custom began life as a 2011 Harley-Davidson® Street Glide FLHX.
It was brought to us in a state of disarray with a great deal of the parts either disassembled or installed incorrectly. With so many different areas of the bike needing major work, we began by developing a plan that would take the most logical approach to tackling the job one step at a time.
First and foremost, we had to address it’s immobility as it had a flat front tire and a collapsed air suspension system.
We worked on the over-sized 30″ front wheel by seating the bead of the brand new front tire. This proved to be challenging at best and has officially earned a spot as one of our toughest tire changes to date. It’s custom size was physically too large to mount in our tire changer, so we had to do it the old fashioned way with spoons. After finally getting the tire to seat on the bead, we were still unable to get it to hold air. As shown in the photograph above, all of the white bubbles indicated where air was still leaking out.
Several frustrating hours into this process, we had all but one leak sealed up. After exhausting every other option, we deemed it necessary to once again remove the tire for further inspection, and at that time found a hole in the sidewall of the tire. This rendered the tire completely useless. While we cannot say for certain what caused this in a brand new tire, we are inclined to suspect that whoever previously attempted to install it had unintentionally punctured it. After this discovery, we were both relieved to have found an explanation and frustrated to realize that we had wasted countless hours attempting to inflate a damaged tire. To remedy this, we purchased a new front tire and, thankfully, the installation went seamlessly.
Next, it was time to address the collapsed air suspension system. With the air bladder and compressor not mounted, the power wires were literally dragging on the ground and none of the air fittings were tight. We mounted the compressor and tank and wired them in properly. At that point we had the air compressor successfully working, so we hooked up the pressure switch to allow it shut on and off automatically to maintain pressure. We sealed all of the remaining air leaks and were thrilled to finally be able to easily maneuver the bike around the shop.
We then turned our focus to the handlebars which had major issues as well. When we tried to mount the front brake master cylinder, we discovered that the handlebar elbows were installed backward by whoever had originally installed them. We corrected this by putting the elbows on their proper sides, which was no easy task as it involved completely rewiring both left and right controls. In the process of doing this, we were surprised to find that the previous wire splices had never been soldered. Down the road, this could have led to countless unanticipated wiring issues. We took care to solder each of the splices to ensure it was securely wired.
Finally, it was time to start installing body parts: the rear fender, saddlebags, tank covers, lower engine guard covers, and upper and lower cowlings.
| Since this motorcycle is so heavily modified, it will be necessary to have a custom fairing made to allow the air suspension to collapse without hitting the headlight on the fender. |
| During it’s stay here at the shop it seemed to captivate nearly every passerby and we have no doubt that it will turn even more heads once all of the remaining body parts are installed. After several months, our work this beautiful bike is finally complete and we are looking forward to seeing it back on the road! |
