68 XLCH

This is a customer bike. It had been sitting under a porch for the last 10 years. Originally he just wanted to see if it would run. I checked a few things and changed the oil in the engine and trans/primary. As it turns out, the trans was full of water, but, much to my surprise, after changing the water for oil and tweaking the carb a little it started and ran. At this point the owner decided to recondition the whole thing. The frame was powder coated along with the oil tank, air cleaner, exhaust, primary, fender struts, headlight and just about all the other small parts. I even took the shocks apart and powder coated the springs and the collars. It got a new spoked front wheel so the back would match the front. I laced a new rim with stainless steel spokes on the back. The bottom end was sound, so there was no need to split the cases. I pulled the primary and trans because of the water that came out of it. I was again surprised; the water had caused no significant damage to the trans. It did need pistons and a valve job. At some point in the past the heads had been dual plugged. Unfortunately the guy who did it drilled the holes in the wrong place and the electrodes on the extra set of plugs had been smashed by the pistons and broken pieces of the plugs had scored the cylinders. I plugged the extra spark plug holes. All in all this was a fun project and fairly affordable. On a side note, the owner hadn't driven a motorcycle in 15 years and his last bike as a little dirt bike. He had never kick started a Harley until the day he picked this up from my shop! He had quite a learning curve. The XLCH is not a beginner motorcycle.