Re: Harley Davidson Dyna ride height

There's always the option of the rider and pillion losing a couple of
hundred pounds.
--
Dave

GS850x2 XS650

On UKRM you're just a **** with opinions.

 

So that's why you've been so cheery lately.

 

No, see, Ford came out with a Special Edition Harley Davidson Hauler for
them. They ring home and have the wife bring the pickup so they can
reassemble everything in the shade of the front yard tree.

 

muddy wrote

Cheery? Me?

I deny everything.

 

muddy wrote

<g>

 

We teach children how to ride on baby bikes like this one. Then, like
children everywhere, they look around and buy a Gixxer 1000 and think
they're hot shit.

 

But, but, but.... that's why he bought the gixxer thou to replace the
250!

 

No, you missed the 100 or so bikes in between.

 

Grimly Curmudgeon said...

Each

 

muddy said...

You mean that F50 thing? They're as unreliable as Hardlys.

 

Ford, Found On Road Dead. Kinda go together, don't they?

 

Gary R. said...

I learnt to ride on tuned Yamaha RD250s and 400s 27 years ago. Never had
a day without a bike since.

I'm an experienced bike rider with common sense who likes to do lots of
riding, hence I don't buy Harleys.

I don't think I'm hot shit, I know I am

 

muddy said...

Cheers Muddy. Mr Gary R Fucktard thinks he's dealing with some 21 year
old kid, not someone who's been buying, selling and riding bikes almost
daily for the last 27 years.

 

Christ. An entire island full of irrelevant wankers making ends meet
by dismissing the new superpower.

It's a wonder how you keep from offing yourselves every morning.

 

We have "friendly fire" for that.

 

I agree with you Larry as I like to ride all types of bikes myself.
Back when I was a rider of Jap bikes I was as clueless as some of the
dumb arses around here and would automatically write off a Harley
rider as someone that was an idiot to buy some old style piece of
junk. That changed a few years ago when I got a job as a mechanic at a
Harley dealership. I had been trying for a job with the Honda dealer
(I am a big fan of the XL/XRL series bikes and would take a XL650 over
a HD Dyna any day <seg>) but they didn't even want to talk to me. The
local HD dealer was the first one willing to give me a shot so I
thought I would go ahead and lower my standards as it was better then
no work at all. After a month of working on them I learned a new
respect for the bikes. All that hype about Harleys being trash is just
that, trash talk. Harleys did get a bad rap thanks to AMF but since
the mid 80's (when the Evo engine came out thanks to the new owners)
that has been changing and Harley now offers a 2 years/unlimmited
mileage warranty on all bikes. Last I looked most of the Jap bikes
only come with 1 year warranty (except certain models within a brand
will have a special warranty just for that model). Harley didn't
change the warranty because they felt they needed the extra coverage.
They did it because they felt that good about what they produced and
were willing to back it up with a better warranty. If Jap bikes are so
much better why don't they back it up with a warranty better then
Harley's on all their bikes? Another issue is while their design might
date back a while (the current TC88 is a lot different then the
original V-twin from 30 years ago and it's only real similarity is
it's a V-twin with a common crank pin) but they are some of the
easiest engines to work on (except that damn V-Rod <g>) and almost all
the work can be done with standard tools. Having worked on all of my
Jap bikes over the last 25 years my biggest gripe with them are some
of the special tools needed to do some of the engine work. So the HD
engines were like a breath of fresh air. Also, the last Harley
dealership I worked for had a buyer trade in his mid 80's Harley
bagger that had 400,000 miles on it. The engine had never been rebuilt
and was still running good. One other point that I think is funny is
what I see as a common failure in current Harleys. In order to meet
tougher and tougher emission regulations Harley is constantly having
to change the spark/fuel management over to more complicated systems.
I spent 2 years working for different Harley dealers (had to change
dealers when I moved from Alaska to Virginia) and would have to say
about 90 percent of bikes that came in not running were due to a
failure of some sensor or another. In other words the part that caused
the bike to fail was an electrical part made by some company overseas.
I have not seen an engine that failed due to poor design (short of the
TC88 cam bearing problem which was redesigned in short order and only
effected a short period of bikes). It's been about a year and a half
since I last worked at a Harley shop (I now work on custom choppers at
a Polaris/Victory dealership) and from what I here the current sensors
are much better so my info above is a bit out of date. Another item is
in regards to getting parts for older import bikes. Try getting parts
for a 15 year old Honda. Odds are the part is long discontinued. Now
try doing the same for a Harley. You'll have a lot better luck getting
that part due to most parts being used over a very long period due to
that "age old design".

Anyhow, while I still ride imports (my current ride is a 1981 Honda
GL500 and I also have a 1976 BMW R90/6 that is undergoing restoration
along with a 1984 Yamaha XT600 that was given to me) I have since
learned that Harleys aren't as bad as people that don't have a clue
make them out to be. While some models may have a right turn issue due
to the way the exhaust system is done I have seen that even happen to
metric bikes with custom pipes. That is a cosmetic problem and can
easily fixed with a different design. The bikes are cruisers and not
crotch rockets anyhow. They weren't sold to take corners at 100 mph.
<g> I used to have a 2002 Sportster and while the stock exhaust wasn't
a problem in right hand corners when I changed the exhaust I put on a
Supertrapp 2-1 setup that gave me even more clearance. So I guess the
answer to your initial post would be to look at different pipes (this
might have already been stated by others down the thread as I have not
read all the messages yet).

Ruppster
sportster at dodge-semis dot com

 

I second that. The Dunlops aren't that bad though. When I had my
Sportster with a 2-1 Supertrapp setup that gave me some great ground
clearance I could take both left and right hand corners with ease.
Granted the bike was still a cruiser and not a crotch rocket so I
didn't expect it to keep up with crotch rockets anyhow. <g>

Ruppster
sportster at dodge-semis dot com

 

Am I supposed to be impressed because a Harley dealer will take
anyone off the street to work on their bikes but a Honda dealer is a
bit more discerning?

 

Nobody round here is insulting Chinese bikes.

 

I didn't want to be cruel.

You're doing a fine job there, keep it up.
--
Dave

GS850x2 XS650

On UKRM you're just a **** with opinions.