General Posts

There’s two shots of the stripped King by Markus. The remaining amatuer shots were taken of the loaded King after a 650 mile weekend run to Laughlin and back to the west coast. Over the last year we’ve tore into this classic 2003, 100th anniversary Road King. I figured I wanted a touring bike for the long haul. The notion was designed around maintaining the 100th theme, adding to the blackness and durability. I wanted a tough black bastard to ride, not detail or polish for shows. A bike for years to come. What could be better? We used 90 percent H-D parts including a modified taillight bracket, Screamin’ Eagle turnsignals and narrow light bracket. Much of it was powder coated by Custom Powdercoating in Dallas We kicked it off with light styling and safety accessories like a blacked-out dash, lowered shocks, rewired turnsignals, touring components and detachable back rests. Here’s the lowered backrest which was black powdercoated. More items need to be blacked out. We worked with a dealer for more involved tech mods and performance enhancements. Our formula was designed around beefing the low-end torque with cams, Screaming Eagle heads, air cleaner and two into one pipes. I ran it directly from the lift to a dyno, for a comparison test, which resulted in 68 horses, an 8-horse increase and 76 pounds of torque, a 6-pound increase. With 16-inch apes from Custom Chrome and new cams it was a different beast as I rolled the King out of the service area and peeled down the street. Here’s a shot of one of the Screamin’ Eagle ported heads. I went with the silver heads for the old Shovelhead or Pan look. My old school notions leaned toward blacking out the king. If the frame had been another base color

There’s nothing like a run to nowhere. No plans, no dates, no deadlines and no formula, we just rode in the sweltering heat like two abused dogs searching for new owners. After a couple of beers, if someone asked, “why?” the cryptic answer would contain: Just to get out of town, to test the new H-D Twin Cam oil cooler, against an ’89 Evo, to see the Hamster gang on their way to Sturgis, to roadtest a new pair of denims, to have my bike blessed by a Catholic Cardinal and finally to avoid the rain. The famous comforting Gusset in the Diamond Gusset jeans. Granted some of this scattered reasoning was whacked. It’s summer, why would it rain? Dr. Hamster and I have ridden on perfectly clear days to Arizona, a fuckin’ desert, and it rained on us. Not a misty sprinkle that relieved the heat, but a goddamn downpour that had us standing knee deep in gas stations attempting to refuel. High dollar chain wallet for road protection. It was given to me at the LA Calendar show by a blonde knockout. She handed out free wallets to anyone who would stare at her tits or her sponsor’s truck, Schapiro & Leventhal, The Motorcycle Attorneys. This time we got the hell out of Dodge in the middle of the day, under scorching rays. The day before I tore into the King, changed all the fluids and installed a new 1999 and later oil cooler for touring models. Several readers wrote concerning cooling problems with Twin Cams, and I did some research. According to Clyde Fessler the Twin Cam was destined to be a fluid cooled motor, due to the excessive heat that the factory design crew couldn’t eliminate, until Jim Fueling stepped in, at the last minute. Jim

The King lives again, thanks to the Harley-Davidson Spring catalog supplement. The factory now offers complete blacked out Road King front end components. We replaced the warped nacelle. With a small brush and a 1/2 pint of gloss black Rustoleum, we touched up chipped fasteners over a couple of Coronas. What’s next? The rear fender needed touch-up. The all-black King was cool, but the damn thing needed some color. That called for old school pinstripping. Finally we liked the new mostly black mags except for the tits around the rim. They seemed out of place. We pondered a solution. There’s Henry with a Jitter-Bug orbital sander. We rode over to Henry Figueroa’s Auto Restorations, a steel corrugated building on the wrong side of town. Henry worked for his dad as a kid fixing cars. His mainstay is restoring antique autos and custom paint jobs for four-wheelers from the ’20s through the ’60s (310) 218-9097. Henry said he would fill the holes in the bottom of the fender and prepare it for George, The Wild Brush, to perform his pinstriping magic (310) 488-5488. Since we didn’t change the color scheme, paying homage to the 100th, we decided to snatch the gold from the edge of the silver band and expand it to other elements of the King. We removed the license plate holder and plastic fender tip in preparation for reworking the fender and filling three holes. Henry handled the small holes with Z-Grip bondo and welded a plate behind the large quarter-sized hole (used for accessory wiring, then filled it with bondo. With nasty-rough 80-grit sandpaper he shaped the bondo to conform with the fender. Then he used finer sandpaper to continue to smooth the surface until it was as slick as a baby’s ass. Sheet metal and bondo work

The Australian Connection standing in the Bikernet Headquarters shop. Around mid June Kerry and myself were organizing our trip to Sturgis, when Bandit contacted me an asked how would I liketo ride the Road King to Sturgis. Immediate thoughts were Wholly Shit, I’ve read all about the King on Bikernet and watchedthe different stages Bandit has put it thru, so I was very familiar with it, and for Bandit to be asking me was really a big deal, meaning, I felt honored enough when Bandit invited Kerry and myself to join them on the ride, let alone ride his bike. So youprobably guessed the answer was a big >>>>>> Yes Sir !! thank you very much. For the readers who aren’t familiar with the Road King, I’ll enlighten you. It started life as a stock 2003, 100th Anniversary model.Bandit said he designed the bike be a big bad assed, blacked out touring bike with heaps of attitude. Bandit and his crew wanted to use as many H-D parts as they could to prove you could build a mean assed bike out of Harley Davidson’s catalogue. They started by blacking out the dash, a set of one inch lowered air shocks and a detachable back rest along with some neat touring components. With the help from a dealer for some more involved tech mods to gain horsepower and some low-down torque, they came up with a formula by adding performance cams, Screaming Eagle Heads, air cleaner kit and two into one pipes powder coated black, giving them 68 horses compared to 60 and torque was 76 pounds with a 6 pound increase. Next they installed a factory oil cooler which Bandit tested on a run to Barstow saying how it kept the oil at a very reasonable temperature which is critical