Harley Sportster
Update: Sold 2008/07/24. Didn't quite get what I've got in it, but it was fun to work on, and I put a few miles on it.
I bought this '99 Sportster 883XL on 2007/01/02, with about 1900 miles on it. A friend of mine, Mike, has been into Harleys for years, but they'd never held a lot of interest for me. I've had 3 bikes prior to this one: a 1973 Honda CB350F, a 1980 CB400T, and a 1984 Honda CB700SC Nighthawk. But after working on his for a while, I got the urge to buy something I could wrench on. A car was a possibility, but I had no garage for it, and they're generally not as easy to work on as a bike. So I decided I wanted a Harley.
Mike knew a girl whose son was in the military, and had an older Sportster he wanted to get rid of. We took a look at it (pictures), but he wanted more than I was willing to pay. As I was holding out for him to drop the price, Mike remembered another friend who had a bike that she wanted sell. He tracked her down, and found out she had sold it for an absurdly low price to someone she knew. We got in touch with that guy, and it turns he wanted to sell it... for about $1000 more than he paid. It was still a good deal so we cruised over to take a look at it, and I ended up buying it.
When I bought it, it had standard polished aluminum engine casings, the stock tank, and was an 883. While it was in the shop getting the casings changed to some chrome ones I had picked up on eBay, the guy offered to take it to a 1200 for a really reasonable price. He already had the bike half apart to change the casings, so popping the cylinders to bore them and change the piston wasn't a much larger step. So now it's a 1200...
When I bought the bike, the stock tank had a small crease in it. It had been laid over against a wooden post in a parking lot. I didn't like the crease, and I found a tank I really liked, a Paughco 4.3 gallon model. After a few weeks, one turned up on eBay. The tank widened the bike on the top end, and really improved the looks. A friend up the street from Mikes shop was learning to paint motorcycle tanks (expanding his business), and did a killer ghost flame job on it.
Along the way I've replaced the grips, pegs, added a tach, added some chrome doodads, replaced the turn signals, license plate holder, rebuilt the front brake reservoir assembly, new front tire, and a bunch of other little stuff. At this point, I've probably got in the bike what it's actually worth on the market. But I've been able to wrench on it, and with the exception of wasting some money replacing an ignition module that likely wasn't bad, I've had a lot of fun with it. And it makes 72 horsepower...
About the only thing I'd like to change (and probably won't) is the exhaust. It's got a Samson exhaust system on it, which is a little too loud, and a little too "poppy". Likely I'd put a stock exhaust system on it with the cross-over pipe, and add a set of Cycle Shack slip-ons. People have reported good performance, and it sounds better. The disadvantage is the cross-over is kind of ugly, and I'd have to have it on a dyno again to reset the mixture.
If someone offers me what I've got in it, I'll sell it. I've also got the service manual, parts manual, owners manual, and some other goodies that go with it.
