79’ Shovelhead Sarsaparilla

[Eldergiraffe]

Let’s get right to it...

I have been working on this 79 FLH since the day I bought it in 2014 and I thought I was done a couple years ago. I was happy with the bike because it was comfortable to ride and I wasn’t too scared of it, but a few close calls had me reevaluate life. As time has gone on and I’ve grown more aware of the fact that I want to live to be old, because I have kids, I’ve decided to try and make this bike a little safer. I rode this bike recently and decided I need a front brake. So I’m going to ditch the 12” over narrow springer with a spool wheel and go for a narrow glide with dual disc.



Note: Front wheel in bottom pic was for mock up reference.

[farmall]

Riding and profiling are different. (What's personally acceptable to a young biker who doesn't care about anything but kool is measurably inferior to effective braking and there's nothing wrong with not wanting to crash.) It isn't as dramatically simple as living or dying, plenty of bikers survive becoming meat crayons.

The early discs aren't impressive for disc brakes but you have decent options even with the early Shovel dual disc. You can bore or have bored later large diameter rotors to fit early hubs and your spoke wheel may clear a greater variety of calipers than mags then make caliper mounts and have much more effective brakes than the stockers for cheep. If ya want something quick Fab Kevin makes adapters for Tokico calipers to fit those sliders. I loaned him a slider to do it years ago but they're not listed on his website and IIRC he can make 'em for small early or much better later era rotors. (It's simple plate). I used a scrap hub with one flange sawn off as a mandrel for my little lathe but a machine shop can just chuck rotors in a serious lathe and bore them with minimal effort. My bro bought an AMF 19" mag by mistake so I bored his stock FXR rotors to fit.

If you're going to do the work to have it your way check all your options. It's not 1979 any more and good brake parts are plentiful and cheap. It's easy to assemble custom braided brake hose from parts.