Upgrade Success?

It was Friday late-afternoon...I  had my new allen-head sockets in hand...I'd swung by Cook's and picked up the Stage 1 kit (and all fluids for a service change) from Jon...I was good to go.  Or was I?  Let's see how I made out...

The Harley engineers managed to thwart me again, despite having the proper tools this time.  See, the allen head socket wouldn't fit all the way into the bolt head.  The socket width widens out to fit the ratchet head, and that width was hitting a bump on the starter, keeping the socket from seating completely.  I tried one turn, just to see if it had enough bite to loosen the bolt, but of course it didn't.  It merely twisted out, rounding the edges ever so slightly, but more than enough for me to know that I wasn't getting the bolt out that way.

So, I had to improvise.  Behold; a regular Allen wrench, then a mid-sized locking pliers on that, and then (outside of the range of the picture); a large locking pliers clamped onto the mid-sized pair.

It took several tries, and not a little bit of cursing, but eventually I got the bolt, and the old rear-engine pipe bracket, removed.  Time to move on with the installation of the new pipes!

Ta-Da!!  The front engine pipe.  That thing looks sweet, and it doesn't even have the chromed heat shield on it yet...

The mufflers, and the heat shields - both chromed to perfection, got the white-glove treatment.  Ok, the gloves weren't white, but the did keep my fingers and hands from leaving any marks on the shine.

The front heat shield.  I had to thread the hose clamps through the welded tabs on the inside, but they slid in easily.  Just have to make sure you have the screw heads all facing the correct way so you can tighten them with ease, later.

Huh.  I see that I did not take a pic of the completed front engine pipe and cover.  Oh well, moving along to the next item which proved to be quite a bit of fun...

The rear enging pipe bracket assemptly.  I'd managed to install the part which bolts to the starter, without any problems.  The next step was to install a circular clamp with an "L" bracket, onto the engine pipe itself.  Doesn't sound hard, right?  The tricky thing is that they only give you a rough estimate of where this clamp and bracket need to go, and how it needs to be aligned so that the hole in the L bracket lines up with the hole on the bracket bolted to the starter.  Wheee, fun!  Let's see how many attempts it takes to line things up...

One...

Two...

Three...

Four...

Five...hey, I got it!  Oh by the way, each attempt involved marking the pipe with a permanent marker, removing the engine pipe from the exhaust port, loosening and realinging the circular clamp and L bracket, feeding the pipe back into the belly of this beast, mounting the flange onto the port bolts, and then finagline thie middle section to line up with the starter bracket.  Good times.

As you can see by that last pic, I was pretty much out of daylight.  I figured I'd wrap things up by installing the bolt that connects these two brackets but what I found was that two people are needed, as there is no way to fit your hands in there to hold both nut and bolt, to tighten them.  One person needs to be on one side, and one person needs to be on the other.  So that task has been tabled until I can get someone else to give me a hande.  And by now, I was completely out of daylight, as well as definitely out of patience, so I called it a night at this point.

The next morning found me reinstalling the right floorboard.  Ahh, but this requires spacers and longer bolts, because the pipe is thicker than the stock one.  Damn.  I hadn't been able to loosen the front mounting bolt so I'd cheated and had removed the floorboard itself (leaving the front mounting bracket still attached to the frame). Well, now I had to go ahead and get that damn bolt out.  I tried all kinds of positions but just couldn't get enough leverage on it, so I had to lay the bike down...

And get the socket onto it...

And then get a bit of leverage on the rachet...

It took a lot of muscle and a lot of praying that nothing would break, but finally the bolt began turning for me.  Once it was out, I swapped the new bolts and spacers into place, bolted things up, and stood the bike back up again.

From there, it was a matter of slipping the mufflers on and getting them lined up and bolted into place.  Then tightening the heat shields and things were looking good.

At this point, the rain had petered out so I figured I'd take a chance and roll it out into the driveway for more room.  No sooner had I done that, then the sun broke through.  Awesome!  Is this a sign of good things to come?

Nope, it soon started sprinkling again, but I said screw it and just put some cardboard down.  Next on the progress; the Screamin' Eagle Stage 1 kit.

This was a very simple process; just remove the old air cleaner assembly...

And bolt in the new setup.  One thing I found very cool was the backing plate mounting bolts had a little groove machined into the backs of their heads for the rubber gasket to seat.  This kept the gaskets right where you needed them to be while you were tightening them into place.  Nice!

Voila!  Stage 1 kit is done.

Lastly, I replaced the O2 sensors with bypasses.  Oh yeah; the new pipes had come with plugs for the O2 ports, so those were sealed off as well.

With my fingers crossed, I started her up...she sounded awesome!  But what was that slight popping sound coming from the front?  Peering closer at the front exhaust port, I could hear the exhaust was slipping past the pipe flange.  Damn - I must not have tighted those flange bolts all the way down.  No problem, a few twists with the sockets and...Damn!  I can't access the flange bolts with the heat shield on!  Ok, ok, I just gotta loosen these hose clamps and then...Damn!  I can't get the heat shield off without taking the right floorboard off!  Arrgghh!!!  Ok, the floorboard came off, the heat shield came off, the flange bolts were tightened...the heat shield went back on, the floorboard went back on....I think we're ready...

With mental fingers crossed, I hit the button again and checked the front port.  It was tight and quiet - well, as quiet as was possible with a set of new Rinehart pipes on!

But what about the skipping/hesitation problem I've been having?  That's the real impetus for this whole project!  Has the problem been cured?  Only one way to find out.  Road test time!

I grabbed some quarters and a towel and headed off to the town car wash.  The bike handled great, an amazing increase in power, and that deep throaty roar that comes right up to a loud bark when you blip the throttle.  Loving it!  It reminded me of the straights I used to run on the Shovelhead, as well as the VAnce & Hines I used to run on the Fatboy (these are definitely louder than those were, though).

I got to the car wash (it has an external station with a hose, which works great for the bike).  I hadn't noticed any skipping on the way to the car wash, but more riding was needed.  I washed the bike up, dried her off and headed back home.  I got the tools put away, called McCarthy to see how his day was going, and then hit the road.  This would be when I'd find out if the problem was fixed or not.

I took some side roads to the highway and then opened her up.  And I mean OPENED HER UP!  In no time I was in triple-digits and there was a lot of throttle still left.  Amazing power!!  This is fun!!!

Easing up as I (all too quickly) neared my exit, I still wasn't sure if the skipping problem was indeed gone.  The bike seemed smooth, but at the same time, I knew the problem had been an intermittent one - one of the reasons it was so hard to figure out.

Cruising down some more side streets, I thought I felt...wait...what was that?  Did the bike just jerk slightly?  Hmmm...no, it seems to be running....wait....what was that?  No..no...it's ok, that was just a bump in the road...the bike is doing ok, the bike is doing...wait....did it just do it then???  I think the problem is that since I've been dealing with this farkin' problem for the last 7 months, that it's just in my head at this point, and I just need to relax.

The rest of the day was spent with good friends - I got to finally see Nelly's new bike in person, and it's very cool.  It sits well - nice and low, and carries itself beautifully.  By that, I mean that when I stood it up, it didn't even feel like I was sitting on top of 700+ pounds.

After a little bit of work, we decided we were hungry so we headed off to Brigg's for some grub and pub.  It felt great to be out on the roadways on two wheels again!

The rest of the weekend was spent sharing laughter with good buds, and sharing miles of pavement.  (Sunday's riding included Matty and Zig.)  And the best part is the bike does honestly seem to be running smooth again.  Time will tell if it lasts - I sure hope it does because this last attempt, with the Stage 1, the Power Commander, and the pipes, sure wasn't easy.

But as soon as I hit that starter button and hear that sound, it sure was worth it!

Ride Hard, Take Chances