Friend of mine has a Demon Cycle Wide Glide front end that he took off of his '07 FXSTC. It's got a 3° rake and It's 2 inches over on the tubes. With the 21 inch wheel that he's letting me borrow for a little while It should put my trail right around 5.7". We'll see what happens and how it goes down the road. So I'm starting thread off with this first pic of the disassembly and will update as I go... Hopefully it'll be back on the road tonight or tomorrow..

 

In only 50 minutes, I was able to get the front end off. Nothing too complicated so far... Providing no issues with the DemonCycle front end, I guess it ain't going to take that long to do it at all... I Do have to replace the upper seals though the right hand one leaks and I'm not going to do just one, so I'm going to do both of them. I figure it'll be easier to do it on the bike than off the bike.. I don't have a vise or bench so the bike will be my bench... Once that's done I'm going put some 20 weight fork oil back in...

 

Are you going to replace the steering head bearing inner and outer races?

 

Be curious your impression of raked trees, the one's I've ridden just felt off to me somehow, never could put a finger on what just weird.

 

Ok, ran into a little problem... The original stop that front end was sold with, e steering head stop was missing... They had fabricated one to make it work for this other bike but it ain't going to work for mine.. So now I'm stuck with a bike that's torn apart with no front end on it.. We'll see what happens Monday. At least I have the '77 FXE to ride.. Thank God.. I know I should have just bought a new one and save all my aggravation... So the last picture I posted is how it's sitting right now.. dang it.. And by the way the new front end is going to be zero rake so I shouldn't have any issues... I just thought I'd give this one a try and see how it was but now that ain't going to happen.. Back to the drawing board

And Dan, I wasn't planning on replacing the bearings and the races.. They look great Because I have had it apart a couple times in the 18 years I've owned the bike to make sure they were clean and functional..I don't see the necessity...

 

When I first built my softail I too had a two over wideglide front end on it and rode her that way for a year or two. No problems. And I had a 21 inch on it

although I wasn’t running Fatboy trees

 

Just so you all know I was only going to do the 3* trees because it was a setup that a buddy of mine had for his Softail custom That was just sitting in his garage. The new front end that I ordered is zero degrees rake on the trees and my overall trail will be 5.36". For the new front end I won't be running Fatboy trees The offset will be 2.45 in and it should handle really nice. I'll be able to keep my original rim which is cool.. I might even try my OEM fender on there. If not I purchased another fender on eBay that is a wide glide fender and looks real close to the paint scheme I have now.. But it's for a 21-in tire not a 19"er. So we'll see... $65 on eBay. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a steal, is in good condition.. Fair for the money..

 

Just so you know the wideglide fender will fit with the Fatboy front end but because the Fatboy front end is narrower it's a tight fit

 

When thinking heritage of a Wideglide, a tall spoke wheel comes to mind but your wheel looks too good to discard, pretty much a no brainer to stick it back on.

 

Thanks, That's exactly what I'm going to do. Looking for the right tire to mount on it... Apparently the largest tire I can find is a 110/90/19 but they look pretty good so I think I'm going to go to that to fill the wide glide fender..