When Griffin first started working with us back in 2020, he was immediately drawn to John’s 1968 XLCH900 and its storied history. Having traveled on it in 38 different states, it regularly comes up in retellings of John’s younger years. From the living room rebuild to the brief period of time he literally lived under it, the experiences John had with his bike are exciting and plentiful. (More on that here.)
Inspired by John’s experience with the model and finding himself increasingly impressed with the aesthetics of the “Ironhead Sportster”, Griffin decided to pursue owning one himself. He searched extensively for an early model Sportster, but not having a definitive idea of exactly what look he wanted, remained open in his searches with most other criteria.
Eventually, he stumbled upon a 1976 Harley-Davidson™ XLH1000 on Facebook Marketplace in a red and blue color schematic with oversized ape hangers. Mentally noting the need to swap the bars for something that better suited him, he decided to go see it in person given that it was priced well and said to run.
Seeing it in person required some commitment as the seller was leaving for Florida the next day and the bike was located in Kenton, OH, just down the street from Brim’s Motorcycles. It was parked deep in a trash filled garage hooked up to a crusty old battery tender, initially leaving Griffin a bit skeptical. He asked the seller if he could start it and to his surprise, it roared to life. He decided to purchase it and was eager to get it home and make it his own. Due to the seller’s impending departure, he had to get up at 5AM the next day to get the notarized title.
There were a few things that he immediately knew he wanted to address for form, function, and performance. Removing the ape hangers was top on his priority list and they were immediately swapped out for flat-track style bars that better fit his desired look and preferred placement. He also re-jetted the S&S Super E carburetor, which took took 7 different attempts to get right, but in the end made a world of difference in how well it ran.
Once the more immediate concerns were addressed, he began working his way through the more intricate aspects of the project. He completely restored the kick start mechanism as it was very worn. His bike has both kick and electric start despite originally only having electric. It was common to add a kickstart option as the electric start in early models were known to be unreliable. He replaced normal maintenance items including the battery and went with classic-looking Shinko 240/270’s for the tires.
Later fine tuning the cosmetic aspects to his liking, he painted and replaced the fuel tank and fenders as well as added a sissy bar that he custom fitted. John had a new, original XLH style seat that had been collecting dust in the front of the shop for years that served as a perfect replacement to the existing seat. He also installed an orange decal kit that would have originally been place on ’76 models with a brown tank, but we love how much contrast it offers against the bright blue.
After having owned it two years, it has come far from its days of dark garage sitting and gets taken out often for wind and sunshine. Once mechanically sound, he was able to start getting out and enjoying riding the bike, taking it on trips to West Virginia, Kentucky, and to The Devil’s Staircase Pro Hillclimb in Oregonia, OH.
He’s enjoyed getting to learn its quirks and has found it to be a relaxing ride with lots of character. The open drag pipes are very loud and offer a laugh of sorts when you let off the throttle, a welcomed cackle that hints at the fun about to be had on the ride ahead. True to the nature of older XL’s, finding neutral is a skill that takes practice and the best technique we’ve found is to do so while rolling. This is due in part to the fact that this was only the 2nd year after changing to left side shift, which meant an excessive number of linkages. In 1977 this was remedied by doing away with the extra linkages and taking the shift shaft directly out of the left-hand side.
His plans for the future are simple: keep riding it and fix what breaks!
