76 Shovelhead Swingarm Chopper

[Akamm47]

Picked up this 76 FXE Super Glide last summer with about 8k miles on it. Owner was some rich guy who never rode it and had to get rid of a few of his toys. Guy before him was a professor at Texas AM, and the original owner.

Bike was in pretty good condition but had lacked some basic maintenance over the years. I realized I never even took any pictures of the bike before I started getting into it. Here is a photo from the craigslist ad.



My plan was to build a swingarm chopper but wanted to keep a lot of original stock parts. This was also my first shovelhead and didn't really know much so everything took way longer than I expected.

Started off, by cleaning what I suspect was almost 50 years of road grime.

[Akamm47]

Then through on some 8 over fork tubes and some mini apes and risers. I swear there was only 2 oz of fluids in the forks when I changed them. Ran the bike like this for the rest of summer and debated on keeping it like this.



Then decide it was time to throw on the narrow sporty tank. Was somewhat painful to cut the stock tank mounts, but I got over it.









Sorry, I don't take very good pictures.

[Akamm47]

Bike started running poorly and went to change intake manifold o rings and found a pretty big chip on the head.



With a little help.





Some shiny stuff.

[Akamm47]

Cleaned up the heads after the repair.







Polished the rocker boxes since the chrome was peeling pretty bad. No after photo but here is the before.

[Akamm47]

Dug into the rockers while the heads were pulled. Didn’t like the idea of the washer spacers on the rocker shafts so I ended up machining the shafts to remove the end play to .008”





Picked up a keystone fender from James at old glory and seat covered by the dude at counter balance cycles

[Akamm47]

While waiting for paint I got bored and decided to put on a round swingarm, drum brake, and 18 inch wheel. Probably one of my favorite parts of the bike. Rebuilt the brake with fresh pads, brake cylinder and MC. Laced up a repop star hub to an 18 rim.





Machined the shock mounts so I could use the shocks I already had



Re painted this old license plate that I'm going to run

[Akamm47]

Finally got everything back together and on the road yesterday. Couldn't be happier with how everything turned out.

[confab]

Very nice work.. You don't see a lot of swing arm bikes like this.

What size tire are you using on the rear?

[Vyvyan]

Very nice.
I am also riding a swingarm fx shovel, and thinking about some overstock forks.
How does it handle with 8 over?

[markwade74]

Hell yeah, that turned out nice. I like your choices

[BlackCloudSalvage]

Killer!!!

[Akamm47]

Very nice work.. You don't see a lot of swing arm bikes like this.

What size tire are you using on the rear?

It is an Avon MKII 4.00-18

Very nice.
I am also riding a swingarm fx shovel, and thinking about some overstock forks.
How does it handle with 8 over?

It handles fine, definitely different than stock length but not bad.

[luxloco7]

Looks clean!! Nice job.

[selectedgrub]

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