Floggin' an old Ironhead Sportster

Jeff Higgins · 10-26-2011, 07:12 PM

Back story:
Or maybe "true confessions"... I've been a neglectful parent. I've allowed other, "sexier" (Ducatis...) or "more modern, reliable, comfortable" (Road King) bikes to steal my heart, squeezing out my first love in the process. Or, actually, my third love, I guess - this was my third Ironhead in as many years in the late '70's. I've owned it since I was 19 years old, in 1979. We've been cross country together, she's gotten me first to school and then to work when I had no car. She has been a faithful companion but, alas, I have not. The poor girl has sat disheveled and ignored, behind the other bikes in my garage, for the better part of the last decade.

I finally determined that I should do something about that. So, about a month ago, a pretty thorough "once over" began. She has now been treated to a new Corbin seat, a new GMA front brake caliper, a new disc, new shoes in the rear, new Metzler Laser Tecs, a generator rebuild, a starter solenoid rebuild, a rebuild of her S&S Super "E", a new battery, some rewiring, a new chain and sprockets (19 tooth countershaft, by the way), a new Dyna ignition unit and a fresh set of advance weights and springs, a new coil and spark plug wires and a generous helping of good old TLC.

Today was the big day. After a week of around town shakedown runs, fiddling with jetting and timing and re-torquing all the fasteners, we were ready for a blast up the valley. So, I bundled up, warmed her up, and off we went. Here we are, together again, enjoying the afternoon:

Back home, relaxing:

As is readily apparent in the video, this is no modern sportbike. It is, however, very satisfying in a far different way to ride, and "make time" on it. The thing shakes so bloody hard - you can see it quite clearly (or quite "fuzzy", I should say) as the revs climb in the video. It's definitely a lot of work to hustle this thing down the road, and it's certainly not the most comfortable thing out there, but there is just something about it that is its own kind of fun. It could never again be my only bike, and if I ever had to pare down it would be the first to go, but there is still room in the stable for this kind of machine. It's fun to be back on it again.

Hugh R · 10-26-2011, 07:26 PM

Very, Very sweet! I have a really, really old piece of British trash that I need to go through that is about 80 years old. It ran a few years ago. I need to get on the stick.

pwd72s · 10-26-2011, 07:30 PM

Long Lonesome Highway-"Long Lonesome Highway" - YouTube

Jeff Higgins · 10-26-2011, 07:51 PM

Good stuff, Paul - thanks. That show was a huge influence on a young kid in the late '60's, one that was already hopelessly enamored with all things car and motorcycle.

Mt second Sportster was a '67, much like the one in the show.

LWJ · 10-26-2011, 09:30 PM

That is one jiggly video! I have never ridden a Harley. I have an inkling that they might vibrate a bit!

Larry

KaptKaos · 10-26-2011, 09:45 PM

Revs light a bread dough maker. Looks fun though =)

LakeCleElum · 10-26-2011, 10:26 PM

Nothing like that feeling you get about 1/2 after the ride ends: Your nutz start to "tingle" as you get the feeling back.

Good look bike Jeff.

Jeff Higgins · 10-27-2011, 05:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LWJ

That is one jiggly video! I have never ridden a Harley. I have an inkling that they might vibrate a bit!

Larry

That's actually a pretty realistic representation of what you see when when you're riding one of the old ones with the hard mounted engines. Ever wonder why Harley riders don't wear full face helmets? It's because your helmet spins around on your head at about three rpm. Notice the big ridges on the ends of the foot pegs? It's the only way your feet stay on them. You're like the little men in one of those old electric football games we had in the '60's.

I can't believe I actually rode this thing as much as I did when I was younger. It just beats me senseless in pretty short order today. Definitely from a different time. A time, actually, when most bikes were just as bad, or worse. The Triumphs, BSA's, and such were no better. Norton Commandos, with their "isolastic" frames, were a noticable improvement, but still not up to modern standards.

No wonder Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha, and Suzuki buried all of those guys so quickly. They brought modern, smooth running bikes to the market, while the others were unwilling to change (and really couldn't afford to). No one in their right mind would hop back on a machine like my old Ironhead after experiencing the alternative. Hell, I didn't, for over ten years. Just couldn't bring myself to do it. The only reason Harley survived that era was the fierce loyalty of their core customer base. The individual British brands had no such base; maybe as a whole, but not individually.

I'm glad I put the effort into returning this old pig to road worthiness. I won't ride it much, what with the 900 SS and Road King parked right next to it in the garage, but it is nice to have it back. It's a far different vibe than the other two bikes, contrasting them against the way it used to be. It makes me appreciate them all the more. Plus, since I've had it for so long, it's good for many a fond (and maybe not so fond) memory.

crustychief · crustychief's Garage

Nice bike! I remember my old sportster, hardtailed, branch heads, big cam.. it rode like a jackhammer but it was fun!

pwd72s · 10-27-2011, 08:09 AM

Harley's "core" base back then? True outlaws and cops. Seriously!

Jeff Higgins · 08:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by crustychief

Nice bike! I remember my old sportster, hardtailed, branch heads, big cam.. it rode like a jackhammer but it was fun!

Thanks. This one actually has heads that were reworked by Branch Flowmetrics; I sent them off in the early '80's to have him port and cc them. It has Andrews R5 cams as well, which have enough lift to where the tops of the guides have to be relieved, so they were by no means one of the popular "bolt in" applications. It also hase the Wiseco forged pistons, at 10:1 compression. Short of stroker wheels, that's about all a guy can do to a road going Ironhead, and it still only makes roughly 70-75 thundering horsepower. At roughly 500 pounds, this thing is far from quick and nimble.

Ironically, considering the new Sportster's current status as the "beginners'" or "ladies'" bike in the Harley range, these things were considered to be real fire-breathing monsters when the design was relatively new in the late '50's through the late '60's. For "expert" riders only, only hairy-chested he-men need apply. A 900 twin was heady stuff in a sea of 500 singles and twins, 650 twins, and maybe 750 twins. When they were all pushrod, long stroke motors that "reved like a bread dough maker" (I love that analogy), this thing was king. My, how times have changed.

Funny, too, Paul, in that the outlaws would simply buy the cop bikes when the cops had used them up. It also took a little more dedication, and a lot more mechanical aptitude to ride a bike in those days. IMHO, that's one of the things that went drastically "wrong" - the newfound reliability, and with it, accessability of motorcycling. It's opened it up to a whole new breed of chromosexual poser. "The wave" used to mean "sonnofabeech, yers is runnin' too!!!"....

pwd72s · 10-27-2011, 09:03 AM

In many ways, it was indeed a golden era...I don't like being old, but I'm grateful to have been around back then.

Seriously, I find myself feeling sorry for today's young.

Joeaksa · 10-27-2011, 09:14 AM

Good to see. Am still a flat-twin fan but the older Harleys are still good bikes!

Jeff Higgins · 10-27-2011, 09:16 AM

We worked harder for it back then. Motorcycling is kind of a microcosm of the changes, or advancements made in my lifetime. It has become so accessable, so easy, that it has opened it up for those with no more than a cursory interest. It used to be that if you wanted to ride on the weekends, you had to wrench a bit during the week to make sure things were ready. Every week. Not that it took all of our time, but it certainly took enough of it to where a guy had to really want to ride. Not anymore. Now it can be an activity that a guy can just step into on the whim of the moment, with no prior planning or preperation, knowing full well his machine will run just like it did the last time he parked it. Most folks, of course, think that is absolutely wonderful. So do I, as a matter of fact, most of the time. I think guys who didn't go through that "golden era" are, however, missing something. I'm happy that I can now relive all of that, reminding myself of what it was like and, with that, gain an even deeper appreciation of just how good I have it now.

Superman · 10-27-2011, 09:33 AM

We all had to be "Phaedrus" in order to ride. Roadside repairs were part of the experience.

FWIW, those ol' 900 twins were the original, super-cool, "cafe racers." To this day, I think a stripped, flat-black Sportster with clipons is about as cool as a bike can look. Some of us remember. Also, it just so happens that they were the first choice platforms for dirt track racer guys.

Been meaning to touch base with you, Jeff. We should ride again. And chat.

herr_oberst · 11:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Superman

We all had to be "Phaedrus" in order to ride. Roadside repairs were part of the experience.

You've got that right.

My bud's dad called it the "hours of wrenchin', vs the hours of ridin' ratio".

It was always lopsided. We couldn't have cared less.

(We were kids, and these were cheap dirt bikes, of course)

VINMAN · 10-27-2011, 10:03 AM

Very nice Jeff! Much prefer the old stuff over the new!

RPKESQ · 10-27-2011, 10:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

We worked harder for it back then. Motorcycling is kind of a microcosm of the changes, or advancements made in my lifetime. It has become so accessable, so easy, that it has opened it up for those with no more than a cursory interest. It used to be that if you wanted to ride on the weekends, you had to wrench a bit during the week to make sure things were ready. Every week. Not that it took all of our time, but it certainly took enough of it to where a guy had to really want to ride. Not anymore. Now it can be an activity that a guy can just step into on the whim of the moment, with no prior planning or preperation, knowing full well his machine will run just like it did the last time he parked it. Most folks, of course, think that is absolutely wonderful. So do I, as a matter of fact, most of the time. I think guys who didn't go through that "golden era" are, however, missing something. I'm happy that I can now relive all of that, reminding myself of what it was like and, with that, gain an even deeper appreciation of just how good I have it now.

Jeff, what you wrote is only true if you placed some emotional value over engineering. I ride. I rode since I was 14 on the road. I raced for several years. I have somewhere north of 750,000 miles on motorcycles. I stopped counting 20 years ago.

I picked engineering and quality of construction over emotional attraction to pick my motorcycles. In 1964 I obtained my first Honda. Two Hondas later I was able to obtain a BMW R60/2 (it did not shake above idle and was dead stone reliable). This led to a long line of BMW's and hundreds of thousands of miles with just 4 flat tires, one broken condensor lead, several burned out light bulbs and one carberator float bowl drain plug gone missing.

I was never stuck on the road, never had to do any more than normal maintainace and spent my time actually riding, not wrenching. I used to routinely reel off 1000 mile days and made some very quick point to point rides. I once beat my Father in a Beech Deboniar between airports (about 75 miles). I was there waiting for him when he landed. I did LA to Chicago in 27 hours a couple of times.

I rode rain or shine, winter and summer. I rode when I wanted too, not when the machine was repaired enough to ride.

I abhor badly made or engineered machinery. I refuse to pay the cost in time for such crap.

I really don't think I was a posser just because I didn't have to work on crap machinery.

Jeff Higgins · 10-27-2011, 10:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Superman

Been meaning to touch base with you, Jeff. We should ride again. And chat.

Yes, we should. It's been too long. Now that we both have proper '70's era machines up and running, it would be fun to head out for a ride again.

Dottore · 10-27-2011, 11:13 AM

Great and very evocative video Jeff. Thanks for posting.

I think I understand that charm, having put countless thousands of miles on my gorgeous black Norton Commando back in the day.

Not to hijack, but there used to be a guy called Kenny Dreer building very fine updated old Nortons in the Seattle area—or maybe it was Portland. Anyone know if he is still around?