Turn a Classic into a classic

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righlee18

New member
That's just opposite of the route I took - a mostly black bike that I wanted to brighten up. At the time I was doing the bulk of my appearance mods chrome was the only choice. Now H-D and others have more black choices for caps, covers, etc without making too many trips to the powdercoater. I ended up with black-chrome-black-chrome look that works for my bike - I'd think you could do similar with the black accessories that are available today. A few pieces in the right place can really change the look of your bike.

Heavy K: another vote for the SE RK dash (mine's w/leather ON-OFF-ACC insert)
 
SOL, your bike looks real classic, leather bags and that dash makes it, but what is wrong with going all black? thats what I did on my dresser, but your right rk's are different. nice job. I remember when I bought the rubber piece for the bottom of the dash I thought maybe $15? BUT NO Greedy Bastards charged me alot more. here is a better pic of the dash.
 
Finally got some nice enough weather here in MN for me to take a few pics of my 2005 RKC with my changes made over the winter. I wanted to go with more classic look and thanks to a couple members from this forum I got my Solo seat and solo rack put on. This coupled with the true dual exhaust and Supertrapp fishtails I put on over the winter completes the look I was after. Dave
 
leohd: Thanks for your compliments. To answer your question: There's nothing wrong about all or nearly all black for a Classic.

This question also feuled some thoughts on H-D's history of black vs. chrome. Early H-D bikes had practically everything except the engine painted gray or olive. Somewhere around the early 30s black was the in thing - or at least the black paint was cheap during those hard times. The beautiful mid-30s art deco bikes were all black except for the tins. Other than a smattering of chrome trim and rider-added accessories, this trend continued until the post-WWII Hydra-Glide brightened up the front forks. Chrome was everywhere in the 50s and the Dou-Glide bikes had a tasteful amount from the factory. The 60's Electra-Glide had plenty of chrome from the factory and could push tacky with the rider-added chrome accessories of the day.

The AMF years ended anything "Classic H-D", IMO.

To me, the stock paint and lines of my FLHP resembled the late-50s to early-60's Dou-Glide so that's the style that I tried to echo with added chrome bits and other mods. As demonstrated in the 400+ previous posts, others have found their own way to "Classic"
 
Wow! I can't believe I hadn't seen this thread before! I pretty much don't pay attention to the "stickie" threads but I'm glad I found this one. I just now posted some pics of my bike in the main forum before I found this thread.

Some REALLY nice bikes here and right up my alley. I have had my '09 for about a month now and am already working on making it sort of "modern vintage". Just adding some classic cues to it not attempting to clone a vintage FL per se. I'm planning to add some bars that fit that idea soon and also want to get to work on designing and fabricating a spring solo seat and fender mounted pillion pad. There's a guy that makes a kit but IMO it's too expensive and doesn't look as clean as it could under the seat. I'm also going to change out my exhaust in the near future as well. The Fuelmoto Jackpots I have are nice but I'm not crazy about the look or sound.

Here's a few pics of where I am so far.
 
The 09 is smokin. Needs big apes or some wide bars to finish the deal. I only thing I hate on the 09's is how they mounted the license plate frame in the fender. Check my 05.
 
LEOHD,

Do you have a part number for the Screaming Eagle dash?

I bought a Road King standard, and looking at your bike its definitely the way I want to go with mine, the standard dash is wide like a parking lot, lol.
Your bike looks awesome, I hope to get there with mine someday.

Regards,
Roberto
 
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