Exactly what you see
I saw a Craigslist ad for a Harley trike in Texas. I called the guy and in 30 minutes I was on my way traveling 645 miles to Texas from Wyoming. The trike had never really run and just sat in the Texas sun for 20 years. I rented a U-Haul trailer to get it home. I stripped it completely down and in four months got it on the road for the first time. I did all my own work and outsourced nothing. My work included welding, machining, wiring, painting and woodwork. It has a 1940s rear frame section of a Harley Servicar that is mated to a 1959 Harley front frame section. The rear axle is a 1950s style that needed to be completely rebuilt since the old grease turned into road tar. It was common in the day to flip the rear end over to accommodate the left hand drive of the big twin but the way the two frames were put together made the rear chain scrape the frame. I decided to flip the rear end back to the original right hand drive by making a jack shaft that made the rear chain clear the frame. I was going to throw away the wooden box that came with it, but when I sanded it, the beauty of the wood shone through. I finished it with Spar Urethane. I discarded the rear fenders that came with the trike and bought trailer fenders and I cut them to fit. Since the rear chain is adjusted by moving the rear axle, I made brackets for the fenders to mount to the brake backing plates instead of mounting to the box. I completely disassembled the 1973 front end, cleaned everything and replaced old parts. Then I mounted a new front wheel, but since the front wheel was the newer style, I had to machine the center rotor hole a little larger for the rotor to fit the newer style wheel. I painted the tank with industrial enamel from Menards Home Center. They tinted it to the shade of Harley orange. It has a 1973 FL shovelhead motor. I didn’t have to do much to it except rebuild the Super E carburetor and polish up the aluminum. Because it has an alternator, I bought some indicator lights from gammatronixlimited on Ebay that fit the Panhead dash perfectly. One light shows battery level and the other shows alternator output. It has a pre-1964 4-speed jockey transmission, so I made my own shift lever with a piston grip. In order to adapt the pre-1964 transmission to the 1973 engine, I had to make an adapter plate to move the transmission to the left by ¾”. Then I had to make an adapter plate for the jackshaft in order to adjust the jackshaft chain. I also added dual air horns and hid the compressors behind the license plate. For long trips, I made brackets for extra foot pegs. I experimented with my final drive ratios and settled on the same ratio as a Panhead FL which is 3.73:1. At that ratio, it will cruise comfortably at 65mph and 3250rpm. Living in Wyoming has some challenges so I added handlebar heaters that slip inside the bars. I also added a Hayden oil cooler from O’Reilly Auto Parts for the summer heat. I finished it all off with a license plate trim from Dudley Perkins Harley Davidson in San Francisco where I bought my first Servicar in 1969. I think it would be hard to find a shovelhead Servicar as nice as this one.
I maintained the righthand drive because the rear-end was intended to take loads in that configuration. A shovelhead is a lefthand drive so I made a jackshaft to fine tune the gear ratio and to accommodate the righthand drive of the rear-end.
I have a very unique motorcycle that really didn’t cost much.
Everybody likes it and many take pictures of it. A lot of people have never seen a hand shift/foot clutch or a kick start Harley. And nobody has ever seen one that looks like mine.
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5 Comments
A beautiful build. I can see this beauty cruisin’ Wyoming. Spent eight years there in the 70’s & 80’s covered much of the Rockies on my Ultra.
Wow, Bob. I heard you talk about, but I never saw it till today.
Frankenstein Beast … my brain was doing flips, who would chop a Pan era sevi ??? then it’s like a panhead front, and flat head servi rear when you got it???….the shovel goes in and WOW that thing looks Rad !!! might as well, Frankenstein to just anther form of Frankenstein at that point..
Frankenstein Beast … my brain was doing flips, who would chop a Pan era servi ??? then it’s like a panhead front, and flat head servi rear when you got it???….the shovel goes in and WOW that thing looks Rad !!! might as well, Frankenstein to just anther form of Frankenstein at that point..
nah, that’s a knuckle era servi rear….what a trip..