Fresh out of the Box. Standard FXSTC

After running her in I embarked on customising her to my taste. I started with “Live to ride” covers on the timing, derby cover and air filter, Street Slammer bars, diamond back cables, new mirrors, a spoked front wheel, chromed lower forks, new grips, brake and gear shifter levers, chrome brake calipers, chrome reservoirs, chrome swing-arm, chrome tappet block cover and gearbox cover.

Stage 1 with some chrome added.

The next stage involved losing the stock exhausts together with all the CO2 controls, adding a power comander, changing the air filter and getting those extra horses out of the motor without resorting to major modifications. I went for Porker exhausts because everyone seems to have Vance and Hines and I wanted something different. The lines of the “hatchet” exhausts also appealed to me.

New Breathing

Then the inevitable happened and we bought a “couch” for our weekend rides. The Softail was uncomfortable for Jayne so we invested in a FLHTCU. this had many benefits, not least of which was that I could now make my softail a “solo” bike and customise her to my hearts content. The first thing I did was get hold of Christine LePera who was very helpful and did her best to ensure that I got what I wanted despite us being several thousand miles apart. The result was a beautiful grey leather solo seat with a blue alligator skin insert.

LePera Seat

Next up came a change of heart with the wheels, the stock “custom” Harley front spoked wheel was OK, but why did Harley not make a matching rear wheel? A bit of research and I found what I needed at Arlen Ness, matching wheels, rear sprocket and brake discs. What a difference that made especially when I had the rear suspension lowered by 2″. At the same time I found more covers for the “banana frame” from Kuryakyn and my Softail was starting to look more like a custom bike.

Rear Wheel and Sprocket

Getting There

At this point in time my company transferred me back from the United Arab Emirates to South Africa where I spent 12 months arguing with the authorities in order to get my Softail registered and licensed for road use and the project was stalled.

Happily this situation came to an end after the intervention of our President! Who intervened on my behalf and I got the necessary papers within a matter of minutes (no joke). So the project was back on track. One of my biggest beefs with the FXSTC was that ugly bobtail fender, so I bought another better looking fender with chrome struts and approached a local Custom builder. Louis at The Wrench was extremely helpful and arranged to fit the fender for me (this involved cutting and modifying the fender fittings) as well as getting some parts re-chromed (no offence guys but the standard of chrome in the USA is not good, it peels too quickly), fitting rear indicators, a new licence plate holder and a few other goodies. The mirrors were changed, the air intake was changed to a velocity stack, the derby and points covers lost the “ride to live” logos and gained a skull and crossbones. Louis put me in touch with Willie at Galaxy Customs who arranged a beautiful paint and mixed in just the right amount and size of metal flakes to produce an awesome colour. Louis also introduced me to Henriette “The Tank Girl” who spent some time with me designing the artwork and came up with something different and very stylish.

I have to say that I think our local custom builders, painters and artwork people can compete with the best the States have to offer. They do not get the credit they deserve for their talents and anyone in South Africa that needs any custom work doing would be well advised to contact the guys in Pretoria. The end result was a very popular entry at the Africa Bike Week custom bike show giving the winner of the “people’s choice” section a very close run for the title. Who knows if we would have won if the Organisers had not run out of ballot papers?

Mirrors

Front Fender

Rear Fender

Eish!

So now she is finished, or is she…………..