how hard is it to put a belt drive on a 73 sporty, how does that cross over brake rod ,used for a shift rod to make a suicide shifter, alittle confused. i might want to put a bolt on hardtail ,would it be easier to put a rear brake rotor off a later model,like which one a 1978 perhaps,then put a belt sprocket on the right drive?

 

The belt drive is not an easy task as there is not enough clearance behind the sprocket cover and the swingarm gets in the way, too. It can be done, but be prepared to take out a mortgage on your first born, the ol' lady, and toss in a couple AIG bonus checks, too.

I put a disc brake on a '72 XLCH with little problem. Took some bit of fabrication, though. It can be done with a later model disc setup as you write. Still requires some fabrication. I think you can Google and find a link to a step-by-step on the disc brake conversion.

I also did a jockey shift a couple different ways - one was using a left hand throttle and keeping the shift lever on the right (Indian did it this way), and the other used the brake crossover. The brake crossover isn't hard, but requires a little imagination and fabricating skills. I turned the shift lever up, shortened it to about 3 inches long, attached a rod using a heim joint, ran that rod back to the brake crossover (with many troublesome bends) and attached it using another heim joint, fabbed a jockey lever out of flatbar, and attached it to the other side of the brake crossover. I didn't like how it worked because the bends in the rod made it feel "mushy", and it was easy to miss a shift. I later put a Dick Allen collector exhaust on and that allowed a redesign of the crossover arm to get a more direct connection.