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A Modern Tour Glide? (the story and adventure) little long

8K views 32 replies 15 participants last post by  Foot0069 
#1 · (Edited)
Building a Modern Tour Glide..."Ester"

OK....Dont have the cash to buy a RGU, kinda semi-retired and on a fixed income. I got rid of my 09 EGC (payment) and bought my 89 Electra Glide Sport (the Road Kings grand-dad) for cheap cause it needed ALOT of love. Her bones were good, everything was there, engine with a fresh top end, and the trans had been changed and in good condition. The front end was there but bottomed on everything, the rear was just as bad and "wiggly". The electrics............well it would start and the headlight came on, that was about it. Oh yea, and the battery would die in 2 days and the seat was trashed. This is the back story.

I sorted out the electrical, new stator, regulator, blinker module, and ALOT of wire work. The front end got rebuilt, lost the air system and went with a full Revtech makeover. Gold emulators adjusted for sport with there springs preloaded with and extra 1/2" of spacer and new bars. With some other work done to the carb and other engine systems and cobbing an 09 seat that was laying around............I had a "rider" now, a little "wiggly" in the rear swingarm, but a rider.



Now for the task of a fairing! I CL'd a RK quick release windshield, thinking I could maybe set it up to use a Dead Center or Dragon Fly fairing.....FAIL!!! Then I saw a TG, it had the same gauge pod as my EGS! A little research turned up that there really wasnt any difference between the two models except for the bodywork. So the search began!!!!!

I secured a TG fairing with radio pod and a right lower for a decent price. By the way my wife HATES THE SHARK, and tell me its ugly all the time......oh well. It doesnt keep her off of it though.....LOL. I get the fairing mounted and kinda like the look and ride.



Find another lower, paint the lowers and the fairing, only have 1 glovebox,me on my and the 09 seat doesnt fit very well, still wiggly, but I have a bike again. Fast-Forward........We move, I now have a REAL garage and more tiime to get "Ester" sorted out.

I collect the parts to start to bring her into the 21st century. Late model TC swingarm, 1" axle, late rear brake and rotor, 9 spoke wheel with 1" sealed bearings, new rear pulley and belt. I went with Custom Cycle Engineering convertion kit to adapt the late swingarm to the early frame. It uses stock HD spherical bearings and there bushing/adaptors. This has been the SINGLE BEST MOD TO DATE. This bike rides and corners as well as my 09 EGC did, maybe better. I find a Mustang seat for a RK for cheap. I hade to modify the seat pan to fit my frame, but its WAY better than the 09 seat. I found brand new matched lowers, and traded my umatched set for a set of gloveboxes. I color sanded and polished my rattle can painted fairing.....its a 10 footer....but I'll fix it next year. I learned ALOT about paint on this project. I've also done a Fulsac true dual convertion with drilled and lolipooped factory mufflers. I just recieved a set of diamond reflector, H4, headlights to bring her into modern era lighting, and have yet to fit my new 04 rear fender and take-off 09 touring shocks (saving for Ohlins), to complete the build for now.

ANY OPINIONS OR IDEAS TO FURTHER ESTERS LAUNCH INTO...........MODERN, WOULD BE A HELP

 
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#3 ·
The big brown truck brought my "modern" headlights yesterday. Believe it or not they fit without having to modify the headlight pan. The install was straight forward and now with clear glass lens' and the crystal diamond reflector and H4 clear white bulbs.

It's as bright as the new lighting systems of the present HD's

1 more step to modern.............and counting.

More to come.
 
#4 ·
Very nice! Congrats on the project results you achieved!
 
#7 ·
Dig it, a bunch! Anyone who's hacking and cobblin gets my respect.

I know a guy who uses a TG fairing as a "detachable" fairing. He has a plug set up and can quickly pull it and go back to a regular headlight for non-touring situations.

I know I think about it often. RG fairing is nice and all (fugly), but 90% of the time I would prefer no fairing at all.
 
#9 ·
VERY nice! :thumbsup:
 
#17 ·
Today I started my late saddlebag upgrade. As others have said....."They are completely different!" They are a bit bigger, in almost every direction, and they have to be spaced 1/2" farther away from the bike to work properly.

I started out by replacing my bag mounting hardware with late model (2004-2006) stuff. It looks cleaner and has a little wider crashbar. I may not have had to, but some idiot welded the lower bag support to the fender strut.....I guess bolts were just to hard to use. I have some finished install pics for now and will do a better documentation with more pics tomorrow. I took a little different approach than Mr. Brown did. They really go on quite easy, except for the battery relocation. I will start that side tomorrow, but for now, this is where I am.



 
#18 ·
Very cool and very retro looking without actually being very retro. Mad respect to you on the mods.
 
#20 ·
As promised, more details and pics.

First, I measured the crashbars......our origanal factory bar is about 10 3/8" from where it bolts on the top to the outside. While the later model bars are 11 1/2" to the outside. Sooo the later crashbars are wider AND better looking! I use the whole late model assembly....fender strut, crashbar, and bag rail. I found the crashbars on ebay for $15.00 and got the fender struts and bag rails from a crashed bike for $20.00, also from ebay, the crashbars were unusable. This is the cheapest way that I found to get all the parts using ebay. If you try to buy them as a set on ebay they are well over $100.00 most of the time.

Factory 89 crashbar


Late model crashbar


Now for more fitting detail..............I had to space the factory rear bag mount out 1/2" and got some beefy chrome spacers from the dealer. They are pretty cheap at a few bucks each (cheaper than buying the late model rear mount) and there is no real mods needed plus our origanal mount is MUCH stronger than the later ones. For the front, I bought 06 and later front bag mounts (47449-06) and had to do a little modding to them. I was going to mount them to the origanal front bag mount, but found that it almost lined up with the front mounting bolt for the rear frame rail covers. I had to drill and shave the slot to make it mount lower and use the larger bolt. I bent the factory mount down and cut it off. Its welded to the frame, and for now I will leave whats left of it there. Sometime in the future, probably when I need to do some motor work, I will strip the parts off of the frame and make it pretty, then get it powder coated.

Late model front bag mount mods


Factory bracket removed
 
#21 ·
Subscribed. Totally digging your vision and execution for this "classic" touring bike.
 
#23 ·
Tonight I mocked up the right side saddlebag. You can see in the picture that I will have to move the relay and circut breaker that is behind the stock side cover. They wont fit under the replacement cover that I have. I could use the stock cover and cut it and fab a bracket for it, but I want to go to later rear floorboards so I can use the Kury passenger swing pegs, cause the wife REALLY likes them. So I will relocate them, dont know where yet......havent got that far, kinda shootin fron the hip on the ongoing design.

I guess for now, Ester is down. So tomorrow I will fab a lower crashbar bracket and start on the battery box for under the seat, since I have the battery size. I guess I will replace the rear fender too. So tomorrow will be teardown day.

More to come!

 
#26 ·
Today was a teardown day..........and I got my 04 fender on. Had to drill 2 holes for the shock mounts, but other than that it went pretty smooth. The later fender is way shorter than the stock one, so all the modifications I did to the late seat was in vain, cause with a late fender the seat sits back about 2" farther....oh-well, at least I didnt pay $500.00 for the seat. Im going to have to make a bracket to mount the front of the fender to the frame too.

I got all my wiring moved to inside the frame and started rerouting it. I also mocked up a battery bracket for under the seat. I need to buy some nuts nd bolts for the bracket and then paint it, but its going to work great, and the battery will be well below the seat.

Thats all for today.



 
#29 ·
Since doing the upgrade, I've been hearing a rub from time to time, not all the time, just sometimes. So I air down the shocks to 5psi and yup........I'm rubbing.

Turns out that the 140 tire is rubbing on the front of the 04 fender. I figured out that the late fender, when mounted using the factory intended mount on the early frame horns is almost 3/4" further back than on the later frame, making the very front of the fender to close to the tire. The later fender is also longer in the front than our origanal rear fender. I ended up cutting almost 3" off of the front to cure the issue. I really need to cut 1 more inch off, cause on a really good compression it still hits the fender, but I will do that later. I have also changed out my 06 rear shocks for 09 shocks, they have better valving and a higher capacity. They are however a touch larger in diameter than the other shocks, and required 1/8" farther spacing on the blt side only. There was clearance.......but not enough IMO.
 
#31 ·
Put about 200 miles on it in the last week or so...........ride, tweek, ride, tweek.....redo, ride, that kinda stuff. Theres really no "guide" to the mods, its just all trial and error. Some stuff works, some stuff doesnt......lol. Either way, its slowly turning into the bike thats in my head. :D
 
#32 ·
Repeating myself from here, ... I enjoy seeing ...renovations that equal or exceed the new technology. I enjoy renovations that express the individuality of the owner & builder.

You are certainly expressing your individuality in creating a bike that looks as though it came from the factory, with all the recent improvements and technology; but NOT factory!

Also I appreciate others' ability to modify and create machinery. My limits of skill and patience are bolting on what others have designed and made.
 
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