Harley-Davidson FXR Resurrection
"I wanted to mix old with new and get rid of anything that wasn’t needed… to go back to basics…" said Michael.
IT ALL started when I bought a rundown FXR from a friend with the idea of building a custom bike that stands out from the crowd. I wanted a bike that was going to be reliable enough to not be sitting on the side of the road broken down every second ride. The idea started with my wife saying that she wanted a bike for herself and wanted something to go to bike shows with after watching too many American chopper shows on TV. As I already had a Harley-Davidson Deuce and wanted to build something with no computer that could break as all computers do these days, I decided we needed to start with an older bike and the FXR ticked all the boxes. The wife wanted a Sporty, but let’s face it, I had to ride this bike too!
I bought the bike as basically a roller with no tanks or guards. It had no seat or handlebars and was a poo-brown colour. There were no cables or wires and it looked like it has been in a back barn since the 1980s. The bonus was that the bike had a wider swingarm to take a 200 mm tyre, but was missing a few of the components to fit it. This was something that interested me as we wanted that chopper look without going overboard. We did need to bring her back to life in a big way but decided to take on the challenge.
The first battle was to come up with the ideas, which is easier said than done when you have your wife in one ear and your dad in the other and everybody has a different view on which direction we should go with it. So after months of sitting there staring as the bike in the shed, and a few six packs later, I finally convinced my old man that we should strip it down and start fresh. At first he was not keen on this idea because of my lack of mechanical knowledge and his belief of just buy a brand new one with warranty, etc.
One thing that I made clear from the start to everybody is that I wanted to mix old with new and get rid of anything that wasn’t needed; to go back to basics and create a powerful cruiser that would turn heads and not break the back to ride further than the pub.
One day we pulled the bike apart labelling every part and writing it down in a book so we knew where it came from for when we finally got to put it back together. My first thought was that we needed to get the tanks and guards made to suit this bike, and find a seat to suit it as I wanted to run a solo seat for a more custom look and also to ensure there were never any passengers on the back. We sourced the stretched tank and rear guard which was made by Eddie’s Panel & Paint on the Gold Coast. That same day after breaky, I was at a car boot sale, and upon pure luck, I found a seat that I thought would fit so I took a chance and bought it. It turned out with little effort it fitted! Lucky! I did get the seat recovered with black leather as it had some dead reptile cover on it.
I decided that I wanted to get the frame painted the same colour as the tanks and guards to give the bike a more custom look and we battled over which colour to use for weeks. I eventually made an executive decision to paint it in Morpheus purple which I had seen on a new VE Commodore. Eddie suggested we put a pink pearl through the colour to make it shine in the sun. I wasn’t sure if it was a gee-up or if he was serious, and at this stage, I was hesitant due to the fact that I thought purple was borderline gay and adding pink to it was pushing the friendship. But after much debate, I took Eddie’s advice and his 30 years experience in hot rods and custom bikes and put the job in his hands (the wife might have pushed too).
We also decided to remove any tabs and brackets that were not needed on the frame and smoothed out any areas that didn’t have a nice weld join. With our cable and wiring ideas for the bike we wanted a smoother cleaner look.
In the meantime, we proceeded to get the motor work done which was S&S kitted. We also got a custom carby from Roscoe at RPM on the Gold Coast who did all our tuning work.
When we got the frame and tank back from paint, I laid some carpet out in the garage and put the frame on the ground along with the tank and guards and sat there for a few hours just staring at it, thinking what am I doing? With no bike building experience, I thought that I was out of my depth! I told my wife we should sell it and forget the whole thing… after a few arguments, we decided that the build process would be left up to me and she should stay out of it and put her trust and money in my hands.
The first thing I did was install the motor and gearbox into the frame using custom mounts, followed by the swingarm and front-end. I then realised I forgot to put the new swingarm rubbers in! This was the first of many mistakes but a great learning experience. Then we needed wheels and tyres, so we got the 21-inch front and 18-inch rear to take that 200 inch tyre we wanted and wrapped them both in Metzeler tyres. Finally it started to look like a bike.
Dad said that we should leave the tank and guards off until we got the wiring done just in case we scratched them while removing them more than once during the build.
I originally wanted to run an open belt primary but was talked out of it by the old boy. When it came time to put the primary on, it was the most confusing thing I had looked at and called in reinforcements. I printed out diagrams and manuals off the internet, and much like Ikea furniture assembly instructions, they made no sense at all. After a few six packs and arguments a plenty, we managed to finally put it all together.
I decided that it was a smart move to get a professional to do the wiring because I wanted to run the least amount of wires and plugs as possible and did not want to attempt it myself; with no auto electric experience, I would’ve cost myself more money.
It took months of looking for parts and coming up with the ideas but we found some great ideas and wrote them all down, sorted out the costs of all the custom items, and thought we would give them a go. After talking with Eddie and listening to some ideas, we fitted Softail forward controls by using custom adaptor plates that Eddie designed. This allowed for a longer reach for my long legs. (Not sure what the missus was meant to do, lol).
I liked the idea of the digital Dakota speedo I had seen in a magazine, and to add that bit of new to the old, we mounted it to the handlebars. We also fitted custom mirrors with LED indicators in them along with LED rear indicators and brake light.
The exhaust we chose had to have a modified bracket to the gearbox to make it work which was a nice modification by Eddie, and I think it makes the bike look great.
We wanted to try and achieve a Dyna style chopper instead of following the crowd with the Softail designs, and at the same time, we wanted to stay away from standard parts wherever we could. I think we did good to achieve this in the end.
Special thanks to Eddie’s Panel & Paint, Roscoe from RPM, Evan from Ultra Shine Detailing, the old man and my wife.
Photos by Rod Cole; story by Michael
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