You can build your own custom. I did it. It just takes a little time and a little patience.
I will start this post by showing a photo of the finished project. Then I will go through all the steps I took to get there.

 

My project started out by accident, well, sort of. I have always wanted to complete a project like this but never really had any sort of plan. Then I ran across a Heritage Softail with front end damage. I decided to take all of the parts from that bike and install them into a custom frame.

I ordered a frame and a springer from Paughco back in July of 2007. Then I started the teardown of the damaged bike. What I found was that all of the damage was confined to the front fork and wheel. I just couldn’t make myself terminate the life of that easily re-buildable machine so I replaced the damaged parts and put it back on the street.

After I rode it for a few months, an acquaintance of mine wanted it so I sold it to him. Well now, what do I do with that custom frame?

Here is a photo of the new Paughco springer, just out of the box.

 

I started acquiring new and used parts to continue with the plan. The first items were wheels that I found on eBay. The rear wheel is an American Wire 80 spoke. It is designed to hold a tubeless tire. The front is a 19” 80 spoke wheel. I am sure it is Chinese and there is a tremendous difference in quality between it and the rear wheel. It is not a tubeless wheel. I will eventually replace it, I hope.

I specifically wanted a 19" wheel because everybody has a 21.

These photos show the wheels, sans tires, mounted to the Paughco frame. The frame by the way, is designed for the early 88B engine and has an offset so that a wider tire could be mounted. It has a 2” stretch and a 40° rake. The springer has 3° in addition.

The rear shocks were also an eBay score. The fact that they were new in the box and dirt cheap makes me believe that they are also Chinese and temporary.
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At this point, it was decision time. What do I want to do about an engine for this ride. As I said, the frame was built for the 2000 to 2006 88B motor. I ordered a crate motor from Harley Davidson of West Virginia.

The photo shows the box that it came in. The box was damaged and I was petrified. Well, lucky enough for me, the damage was confined to the box. The engine was fine.

 

Every motorcycle needs a transmission, right? Back to eBay I went. I got a transmission that was advertised with 11,000 miles on it. It came with a Bill of Sale which I found out later was very important.

I also found out that even though HD brought out the Twin Cam 88 in 1999, they did not bring out the Twin Cam 88B until 2000. Why do I bring this up? That transmission was the second one I got on eBay. The first one came from a 1999 Softail and is quite different in that it bolts to the frame and not the back of the engine. It is for sale and I do not have a bill of sale for it.

The picture was taken in April of 2008 so as you can see, I was in no hurry. I did this project at my own pace with no pressure to finish it on any sort of a schedule. You can also see that I have mounted tires at this point. The rear is a 16” 180.

 

It was time to do a trial fit of the engine. Boy is that beast heavy. It also had a problem with the front mounts in that they were located about ¼” too far forward so the mount bolt holes did not line up.

My first thought was to elongate the holes. I shelved that idea and decided to replace the mounts. I called Paughco and told them of my dilemma. I asked for four new mount brackets and they supplied them. Now the problem was, “How do I locate the new mounts?”

I decided to use the engine case as the jig fixture but the engine was far too heavy for that. The best solution was to disassemble the engine and remove all of the heavy parts such as the cylinders, the flywheels, etc. The engine had never been started up and now it was disassembled on my work table.

 

When I cut the forward mounts off, I left about ¼” of the original. The reason was that the mount had to be moved aft and since it was on the vertical portion of the frame that meant that it needed to be extended to move it aft.

I used threaded rod to hold the mounts to the engine while I tack welded them in place. I actually welded the rear mounts first which made locating the front ones much more precise.

The engine case was raised up out of the way via the cargo strap after each mount was tack welded. I welded the mounts one at a time and stopped to check several times that the weld did not warp the mount out of position.

The last photo is of me welding one of the mounts. By the way, a forklift is a far better maintenance platform for this type of work than the elevated stands that shops use. I used a Miller TIG welder for this part of the project. Stacey David of the Gearz show on the Speed channel would be very proud I am sure. (I love that show by the way.)

 

Nice,that is turning out very well.

 

The first photo below shows the two left side mounts welded in place. The next photo shows the right forward mount held in place by the threaded rod, ready to be tack welded. You will notice that there are bushings between the mounts and the engine. These came with the chrome hardware kit made by Gardner Westcott. There are numerous distributors of this product but I purchased the kit from J&P Cycles. If the engine mount system did not have these bushings, placing a 165 pound engine between rigid mount brackets would be nearly impossible.

The last two photos show the top mount which I cut loose and moved aft. To hold it in place while I tack welded it, I installed the cylinders and heads and a new J&P Cycles supplied chrome top mount.

 

Below is a photo of a table full of goodies to install. I will start with the seat.

The seat is a Mustang seat and it was purchased through J&P Cycles. I decided that I did not want the seat sitting directly on the frame so I fabricated the three brackets that you see in the second photo. I welded them to the frame and now there is a gap between the seat and the frame.

To mount the rear fender, I used the seat as a fixture. The fender came undrilled which allowed me to mount it however I wanted. The fender brackets were purchased separately from Paughco. They do not come with the frame. They do come pre-drilled.

There are a couple of things that you see in the last photo that I have not discussed yet. The headlight was purchased as a closeout item at J&P’s Destination Daytona Store during Bike Week at Daytona. The handlebars came from Drag Specialties. The gas tank came from the Heritage Softail that started this project. (I purchased a whole tank and fender set for that bike before I sold it to keep it color co-ordinated .)