CLIK ON THE LINKS TO PICTURES BELOW IF YA WANNA SEE EM, THEN USE YA BROWSERS BACK BUTTON TO GET BACK HERE MY FRIEND GUSSIE AND HER 1200S GUSSIE'S BIKE GUSSIE'S BIKE WITH THE SADDLEBAGS SHE GOT FOR 45.00 REST STOP IN FOLKSTON GA , MY BIKE WITH GUSS AND HER BIKE I WILL ADD MORE AS I GET EM HARLEY DAVIDSON SPORTSTER 1200 9-14-2000 OK here i am 54 years old (almost) and i can finally afford a harley motor, so on tuesday i decided to buy one and on thursday of the same week i brought that sucker home. A brand new used 1999 cobalt blue sportster with all of 2471 miles on it, i prob paid too much but ya know ................... I GOT THE DAM THANG. I am going to try and chronicle my good and bad times with the bike and the ride, i have put about 10,000 road miles on a honda over 20 years ago so i am not a new rider, in other words i do have some experience on road bikes and have attended a motorcycle safety course. Boy do i need a refresher or what ? A little background on me ----- I am a certified master auto repair technician and an accomplished auto painter (my own stuff only), i have no experience working on bikes but i have a factory manual and i am reading everything i can find about harleys . I will weigh all options as i always do and then do as i see fit, that is what it is about (build as you see fit ) so any advice is appreciated here but i will ultimately do what i want . I am very much an individual and i do not follow the crowd !!!!! 9-28-2000 Well here i am two weeks after the purchase and i am doing fine , A lot of what i was taught in the safety course is coming back to me and one thing that has helped is covering them brakes when in traffic and anticipating what other drivers will do---- case in point, a car was sitting in the center turn lane with his winker on and i assumed waiting for me but just before i got to the point of no return he made a move to turn in front of me -----i fooled his butt as i had both brakes covered and stopped in plenty of time -----COVER THEM BRAKES !!!!!!!!!!! HARLEY TAX ? WHAT THE HELL ? OK i found out what it is and i am working on it lol, so far i have the carb done ----- yost power tube, rejet etc. i am very happy with the results as the bike sounds and runs better, i also exposed the idle mixture adjustment and that also helped WILL A HARLEY LEAK ? Dam right it will ---rocker box leak on front cyl, pulled top cover and tightened bolts ---see if that fixes it if not i will get new gaskets------- made a startling discovery today while doing this, umbrella valve is missing ? what the he.... well one of em is in there , aint there supposed to be two of em in each rocker box ? OK OK so i need to read the manual more carefully ---only sposed to be one in each rocker cover. OIL------ ok i really beleive in synthetic oil, there are many opinions out there about oil and harley will say use ours , but..... i have a mind and i use it to read all i can about a subject and then make up my own mind as to what is prudent to do------I USE SYNTHETIC i use it in my two trucks and in my car, i use castrol syntec in them. i didnt find 20/50 in that so i got mobil one 15/50 and put in this bike, end of that debate, it is in there and will be in there every oil change. if ya wanna know more about oil then look for links to site in my harley links IS MY BIKE IN TIME ? Well it pinged bad even on premium gas so i pulled the rivets and checked timing, it was way off so i retarded it some and it runs much better now ------HOW THE HELL DID THIS HAPPEN ? HOW DID HE RIDE IT ? STRANGE...............I do not like the fact that part of my great machine is held together with rivets and i have a fix for it that looks better and is more maintenance friendly, i will post the details later...... HOW MUCH IS BIKE LUGGAGE ?-------well in my opinion it it way too much for what ya get, for now i will use a book bag/back pack kinda thingy till i can decide on and get some saddlebags/sissy bar bags , etc. got to carry some stuff like warmer clothes and rain clothes and i like to carrry tools also. MUFFLER BAFFLES ? ---- well i rode with a friend who has a 1200 sport with the baffles removed and i like the sound so while i am waiting to decide on an exaust system to purchase i took out my baffles, i used a die grinder with a carbide bit to grind out the weld at the back end and the baffle came right out, sounds good but i am not sure performance is any better----my butt cant tell it is lol LUGGAGE RACK------- i went plumb nuts and purchased a luggage rack for this thang,100 bucks --- who would have thought ?, oh well i need it to keep crap off my fender when i paint the thing brilliant yellow with graphics OIL LEAK UPDATE------- OK the retorqueing did not help so i replaced the gaskets on the front rocker cover, the gasket had a 1/32 gap in it where it had broken, no more oil bathed jeans. THE GASKETS WERE HARD AS ......... WELL THEY WERE HARD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 10-03-2000 Here it is three weeks after purchase and i have racked up abt 1000 miles, all fun ones , i am VERY happy with the bike even though it shakes like hell at 70 mph , leaks oil and drains my bank accout---- 10-06-2000 TIMING COVER REDO----Well i fixed the timing cover on the bike today, i did not like the rivets so i replaced them with 8-32 stainless screws. It looks better to me and that is what counts. What i did was take both outer and inner covers off, i chamfered the holes in the outer cover with a drill bit and put in screws with nuts on back (see pic) then i drilled outer cover to match inner cover and chamfered those holes. So now to remove the covers you just loosen screws at top and bottom and both covers come off together. this is what it looks like now (see pic) an improvement to me. EXAUST CROSSOVER REMOVAL ? ----- I got to thinking how good it would look if the exaust crossover was removed, so i thought about it and decided i would not lose enough hp and torque to feel it. So i removed the exaust and cut the crossover off with a cutoff wheel , lo and behold i discovered that harley did not fishmouth the crossover then weld it to the main pipe as good header design would dictate, They just stuck it in the main pipe and welded it, leaving at least a half inch sticking into and blocking the main pipe at both ends (see pic). Now in my humble opinion this would have the effect of reducing flow severely so i got out my die grinder and removed the portion that was inside the main pipe so it has a smooth interior, I may even gain a little here.I welded up the holes with small round peices of metal and reinstalled. IT SOUNDS BETTER---IT LOOKS BETTER TO ME ( SEE PIC). 10-07-00 I attended my first bike show today and entered my bike in stock sportster and I WON FIRST PLACE! Listed below are some pics taken at the bike show Biketoberfest ------ I attended biketoberfest in daytona sat and had my bike put on the dyno it made 63 hp and 67 ft lbs of torgue ( see dyno sheet). Maybe I will post some babe pics soon lol Pic 01, pic 02, pic03, pic04, pic05, pic06 CLIK HERE TO GO TO MY HOME PAGE CLIK HERE TO GO TO MY SCOUT PAGE COMING SOON -----LINKS TO SITES I LIKE
CLIK ON THE LINKS TO PICTURES BELOW IF YA WANNA SEE EM, THEN USE YA BROWSERS BACK BUTTON TO GET BACK HERE
MY FRIEND GUSSIE AND HER 1200S
GUSSIE'S BIKE
GUSSIE'S BIKE WITH THE SADDLEBAGS SHE GOT FOR 45.00
REST STOP IN FOLKSTON GA , MY BIKE WITH GUSS AND HER BIKE
I WILL ADD MORE AS I GET EM
HARLEY DAVIDSON SPORTSTER 1200
9-14-2000
OK here i am 54 years old (almost) and i can finally afford a harley motor, so on tuesday i decided to buy one and on thursday of the same week i brought that sucker home. A brand new used 1999 cobalt blue sportster with all of 2471 miles on it, i prob paid too much but ya know ................... I GOT THE DAM THANG.
I am going to try and chronicle my good and bad times with the bike and the ride, i have put about 10,000 road miles on a honda over 20 years ago so i am not a new rider, in other words i do have some experience on road bikes and have attended a motorcycle safety course. Boy do i need a refresher or what ?
A little background on me ----- I am a certified master auto repair technician and an accomplished auto painter (my own stuff only), i have no experience working on bikes but i have a factory manual and i am reading everything i can find about harleys . I will weigh all options as i always do and then do as i see fit, that is what it is about (build as you see fit ) so any advice is appreciated here but i will ultimately do what i want . I am very much an individual and i do not follow the crowd !!!!!
9-28-2000
Well here i am two weeks after the purchase and i am doing fine , A lot of what i was taught in the safety course is coming back to me and one thing that has helped is covering them brakes when in traffic and anticipating what other drivers will do---- case in point, a car was sitting in the center turn lane with his winker on and i assumed waiting for me but just before i got to the point of no return he made a move to turn in front of me -----i fooled his butt as i had both brakes covered and stopped in plenty of time -----COVER THEM BRAKES !!!!!!!!!!!
HARLEY TAX ? WHAT THE HELL ? OK i found out what it is and i am working on it lol, so far i have the carb done ----- yost power tube, rejet etc. i am very happy with the results as the bike sounds and runs better, i also exposed the idle mixture adjustment and that also helped
WILL A HARLEY LEAK ? Dam right it will ---rocker box leak on front cyl, pulled top cover and tightened bolts ---see if that fixes it if not i will get new gaskets------- made a startling discovery today while doing this, umbrella valve is missing ? what the he.... well one of em is in there , aint there supposed to be two of em in each rocker box ? OK OK so i need to read the manual more carefully ---only sposed to be one in each rocker cover.
OIL------ ok i really beleive in synthetic oil, there are many opinions out there about oil and harley will say use ours , but..... i have a mind and i use it to read all i can about a subject and then make up my own mind as to what is prudent to do------I USE SYNTHETIC i use it in my two trucks and in my car, i use castrol syntec in them. i didnt find 20/50 in that so i got mobil one 15/50 and put in this bike, end of that debate, it is in there and will be in there every oil change. if ya wanna know more about oil then look for links to site in my harley links
IS MY BIKE IN TIME ? Well it pinged bad even on premium gas so i pulled the rivets and checked timing, it was way off so i retarded it some and it runs much better now ------HOW THE HELL DID THIS HAPPEN ? HOW DID HE RIDE IT ? STRANGE...............I do not like the fact that part of my great machine is held together with rivets and i have a fix for it that looks better and is more maintenance friendly, i will post the details later......
HOW MUCH IS BIKE LUGGAGE ?-------well in my opinion it it way too much for what ya get, for now i will use a book bag/back pack kinda thingy till i can decide on and get some saddlebags/sissy bar bags , etc. got to carry some stuff like warmer clothes and rain clothes and i like to carrry tools also.
MUFFLER BAFFLES ? ---- well i rode with a friend who has a 1200 sport with the baffles removed and i like the sound so while i am waiting to decide on an exaust system to purchase i took out my baffles, i used a die grinder with a carbide bit to grind out the weld at the back end and the baffle came right out, sounds good but i am not sure performance is any better----my butt cant tell it is lol
LUGGAGE RACK------- i went plumb nuts and purchased a luggage rack for this thang,100 bucks --- who would have thought ?, oh well i need it to keep crap off my fender when i paint the thing brilliant yellow with graphics
OIL LEAK UPDATE------- OK the retorqueing did not help so i replaced the gaskets on the front rocker cover, the gasket had a 1/32 gap in it where it had broken, no more oil bathed jeans. THE GASKETS WERE HARD AS ......... WELL THEY WERE HARD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
10-03-2000
Here it is three weeks after purchase and i have racked up abt 1000 miles, all fun ones , i am VERY happy with the bike even though it shakes like hell at 70 mph , leaks oil and drains my bank accout----
10-06-2000
TIMING COVER REDO----Well i fixed the timing cover on the bike today, i did not like the rivets so i replaced them with 8-32 stainless screws. It looks better to me and that is what counts. What i did was take both outer and inner covers off, i chamfered the holes in the outer cover with a drill bit and put in screws with nuts on back (see pic) then i drilled outer cover to match inner cover and chamfered those holes. So now to remove the covers you just loosen screws at top and bottom and both covers come off together. this is what it looks like now (see pic) an improvement to me.
EXAUST CROSSOVER REMOVAL ? ----- I got to thinking how good it would look if the exaust crossover was removed, so i thought about it and decided i would not lose enough hp and torque to feel it. So i removed the exaust and cut the crossover off with a cutoff wheel , lo and behold i discovered that harley did not fishmouth the crossover then weld it to the main pipe as good header design would dictate, They just stuck it in the main pipe and welded it, leaving at least a half inch sticking into and blocking the main pipe at both ends (see pic). Now in my humble opinion this would have the effect of reducing flow severely so i got out my die grinder and removed the portion that was inside the main pipe so it has a smooth interior, I may even gain a little here.I welded up the holes with small round peices of metal and reinstalled. IT SOUNDS BETTER---IT LOOKS BETTER TO ME ( SEE PIC).
10-07-00
I attended my first bike show today and entered my bike in stock sportster and I WON FIRST PLACE! Listed below are some pics taken at the bike show
Biketoberfest ------ I attended biketoberfest in daytona sat and had my bike put on the dyno it made 63 hp and 67 ft lbs of torgue ( see dyno sheet).
Maybe I will post some babe pics soon lol
Pic 01, pic 02, pic03, pic04, pic05, pic06
CLIK HERE TO GO TO MY HOME PAGE
CLIK HERE TO GO TO MY SCOUT PAGE
COMING SOON -----LINKS TO SITES I LIKE