Reproduction H-D

[exeric]

I"ve been having so much fun with my '51 FL that I am thinking of doing another Pan out of swap meets, ebay, and catalog orders. I've been messing with teen vintage motorcycles for a long time so I am really out of touch with the Harley aftermarket industry as related to Pans and Knuckles. Who makes good fenders, and springer forks for these bikes? Does anyone make fenders as nice as the ones available for later Chiefs? Are the springer forks worth the money they are listed for? I'm looking for positive and objective opinions of available aftermarket parts. I'd love to use genuine stuff but that's going crazy and I want to have the option of using good reproduction.

[bmh]

That's the way I'm doing my 51. although I admit I'm doing it mostly for the challenge, just to see if I can actually restore a motorcycle correctly from nothing. I bought a crank pin for my birthday last year and that was my start , a stepped crankpin. As far as most of the reproduction stuff readily available the last few years, It has ranged from useable, but not really correct for any thing, to absolute trash. And the quality is getting worse. My best freind just finished a 65 sporty and the front fender braces were 2 inches too long, the cam thrust plates were never hardened( made a little mess in a fresh motor in 500 miles) and I could go on and on. Those parts were from Tedd's ( V- TWIN). CCI and the like don't really cater too old bikes. It should be interesting to hear what others have found , as I myself am always looking for suppliers of quality parts.
Brian

[exeric]

I was looking at fenders from AAOK and they look very nice. I have heard bad stories about the less expensive fenders from the place you mentioned. I'm just trying to find out if there really are some good reproduction parts out there. When you look at the quality of the Indian stuff it's shameful that the H-D aftermarket parts can be so poor. I still think H-D gave away a fortune by not suppying their old bikes with spare parts. It was obvious in the 1960's that old Harleys were not going to the scrap yard and that there was a huge market for spare parts. They could have formed a seperate company just to see what was needed, get it made, and distribute it through their dealer network. What a lost opportunity.

[bmh]

I'm not familiar with AAOK, But L&W has started doing springer front fenders , and like everything else Wolf does they are very nice. You're right about Indian stuff . I remember when we used to snicker at the poor indian guys having to buy beat up, rusty , plain wore out junk for their bikes because no one made any new parts for them when we could order almost anything needed to keep an old H-D running. Who's snickering now?
Brian

[exeric]

I thought this would have been a hot topic with club members. I know a lot of people are working on Pans and Knuckles these days and there must be a wealth of first-hand info about aftermarket quality. Brian, I've started projects with just a frame or a motor, but just a crankpin ! Now that's dreaming big.

[T. Cotten]

Exeric wrote:
>there must be a wealth of first-hand info about aftermarket quality<

My thirty year of experience is worth about two cents, so here it is:

When ordering from large distributors (whose sources are often all the same), you never know what you'll get.
You don't even know if you will get a similar part the next time you order one.

The best quality replacement parts come from cottage industries: small producers who place quality above price.

The H-D aftermarket's foundation for decades has been cheap, one-size-fitz-none, bolt-on chrome crap.
Quality hardware has always been secondary.
In direct contrast, the maturing Indian aftermarket is taking quality straight to the top of the mountain. (Most of the producers, anyway.)
But the prices are staggering: A completely reproduced Chief would cost at least $10G more than a restored original.

So, to build a really really nice H-D from aftermarket parts means you will have to shop in earnest for exclusive suppliers, re-manufacture the rest, and really bite the bullet when you pay for all of it!

....Cotten
Meanwhile, building an aftermarket Pan is often discussed at Hydra-glide.net
under 'kit bikes',... or at the FHP forum under 'Pans'

[m.crabb]

i've encountered the exact same problem as bmh on the sprty fender,but i was glad to oblige the customers idea of bobbing it and just cutting off the offending part-modifying vt's repro parts for acceptable use has become an art form of itself and employing internal engine parts of unspecified manufacture is a crap-shoot of the riskiest sort when someone pays good money for the job;it becomes your baby when things go wrong and it all just sounds like excuses at that point.Crabb