I think those tires are the reason they invented crash bars

 

Rufus That tire only has 10K miles mine had 20 And Dr Hess my FLH was a 1979&1/2 Put solid lifters in at 20K and sold it at 40K I only paid $2800 AMF adios ****** forkers !

 

thanks again,

I got the old tire off, the bead on the old tire doesn't have the whitewall peelings like the new tire so I think I should try to scrape/sand some of them off much the way you scrape off peeling paint. Other than that the tire looks fine, manufacturer date is 1310 so it is pretty fresh. I really had to wrestle with the tire and the videos suggest putting on the new one is going to be harder.

 

BTW, good vid link, shov. I learned what I've been doing wrong.

George, my FLH was a 79-1/2 also. The cream and tan classic. It had 3K miles on it when I bought it from a HD dealer and I didn't know that the cases had already been apart. When I had the bottom end rebuilt at about 25K, we found complete crap inside it. Rods that didn't match each other, etc. That was the year that HD was rumored to be experimenting with different valve guides. Their R&D was to put out so many bikes with this valve guide and so many with that valve guide and see which motors blew up. This must have been one of the bad ones. I was very happy to see it go down the road on the back of a truck, heading for a container to be sent to the Netherlands. AMF. She wuz purdy, though.

 

I had 79 FLH-80 Classic as well. It was burnt in a garage fire when I got it cheap. Rebuilt it from the ground up with the usual solid lifters, B-Grind cam and Super-B carb, etc. Rode it back and forth across Canada a couple of times, have some great memories. Also lot's of memories of picking up parts off the road, leaking trans, etc. I miss having a shovel, but not that one.

 

PaJoe, I'm not exactly sure what your talking about regarding the bead imperfection question. I know you have to check the tire for manufacturer defects, but the bead doesn't have to be perfectly smooth to seal. Maybe they are saying to check whether the bead seats uniformly around the rim? Lot's of times they will hold air , but not seat evenly. That's when you bring out the sledge hammer and cargo strap to pop it out all the way. I've never had to sand or scrape a tire.

 

You aren't gonna hurt anything by sanding down the bead area a bit so if you feel it needs then you should do it. I would stay away from scraping it though. Obviously you'll need to clean the rim and tire very well before mounting the tire. I put the Dyna Beads in right before putting the second bead over the rim.

I started changing my own tires recently. I did buy the HF changer to make things easier and bought a removal and mount bar along with some plastic things to put on the HF changer to keep from scratching the rim.

When I did the car tire in the sig pic below; it went great until that last bead going on. Then I had to put the wheel on 4x4's on the floor and tackle it like monkey screwing a football. It went on though and all is well.

 

Dr. Hess Did you have one of those strange numbering systems The motor had a different number than the frame ? HD ran this numbering system to curtail theft ! so they thought! I had to carry a piece of paper from HD just in case the cops had any problems I out ran them anyhow ! I got my FLH from the orig owner 4800 miles It had that strange ign system they ran in 78/79 I always carried point/condensor just in case and for sure going to work on morning I had to put the pts in I love point systems! It was orig red I had it painted 2 times AMF got good by then

 

No, my frame and engine numbers matched. I strongly suspect HD was just pushing whatever they had laying around out the door. It was the last of the AMF era, and no one gave a shiite about anything there.

Yeah, that was commonly referred to as the "hearing aid ignition." I took it out and put points in because I figgered it was going to fail on me anyway, like the rest of the bike did at one time or another. Points may not always run right, but they will always run. I probably still have that hearing aid ignition somewhere, but a couple years ago, I took all my shovelhead and iron head parts, put them in a foot locker and sold the whole lot for $20, including the foot locker. There's a radio show here where you can call in and list your stuff for free, so I listed a foot locker of Harley parts for $20. I only said $20 so that I wouldn't get someone that wanted something for nothing, and someone who really wanted them would get it. There was probably $300+ worth of stuff in it, easy, some new, some used, some going back to flatheads. None of it fit my bikes and I really don't want another shovelhead or iron head. A couple came over with $20 and took it. He had an iron head sportster and needed the points weights because his were frozen (a drawback of a points system, but it would still get you home). I had a brand new points set with the weights and everything still in the blister pack in the box. He was happy.

I may have outrun an armed thug or two myself on that old bike. I had an Andrews A grind, Lectron carb, and a fairly open exhaust. Also helps to have a garage door opener in your pocket.

 

My first Harley, new in 1974, cured me of changing tyres myself! That 16" was such a b1tch to get off Harley's 'safety' rims I vowed never to do it again. My local Yamaha dealer is a short trip away and does an excellent job and I get a coffee while I wait. Tough work, but I feel I have to do it....