What got me about the 08 FXDF FatBob is it reminded me of the 1971 FX I bought from Poole's HD in the winter of 1970. I’m sure you remember the one. It had the Sportster front end and headlight, big tank and the boattail fiberglass seat and rear fender. I saw one in the classifieds a month ago for $20,000 untouched it said. My Dad knew I can’t leave a bike stock and although the boattail was an evolutionary approach I was more a revolutionary. My dad used to go nuts when I’d pay $3,000 (same price as a full sized car in those days), drive it home and tear it apart in the garage and make it right. Well, like I told you I was an advanced child and I learned my lessons well. This time I decided to leave it in the dealership and do the work there over the winter. Funny thing is that Percy Poole let me do it but now that I think about it he was trading me a primered peanut Sportster tank, off the shelf shorty exhausts, and the use of his shop part time because I did all the fabricating at home, in trade for the brand new decker tank, the boattail with seat and exhaust system. I thought he was very kind to such a young and impressionable boy like me. I certainly learned a lesson on that one.
Underneath that boattail was a half fender or splash pan and I took the flip-up portion off the rear fender of a 47 Harley and welded it to the splash pan to create a Bobbed fender. I sanded down everything and then gave the parts six coats of hand rubbed black paint. I put on the shorty exhaust and a cobra seat and we were ready to go. Of course I didn’t have a speedometer now because it was built into the tank the same way they are now. Oh yeah, had to have a sissy bar on the back.
Now I’m talking about a real radical chopper for 1971 in the spring when I drove it home. One other thing, I took the big Sportster front fender off and put a chrome small one on. I get home and my dad doesn’t know what I’ve done, cause I’m not telling, and he thinks the bike looks great. Then he says “hang on,” runs into the garage and comes whipping back waving a hack saw and makes like he’s going to saw the front fender in half. I’m screaming at the top of my lungs “It’s finished! It’s finished!” He goes, “we’ve got to do something, let’s just hack it a little.”
Well he was just pulling my fat right leg and having a laugh on me. Believe it or not I had to learn how to drive that bike expertly under all kinds of conditions. Willie G. had failed to change the gearing on that bike and it was set-up to haul ass on a bike that was maybe three hundred pounds heavier than mine, you know a full decker with bags, gigantic seat, and a very solid steal front end. I would start out on that bike and give the throttle a twist and the front end would fly up in the air and the gas cap would hit me in the forehead. At times like that I learned to just get it going in first gear and do all the fancy footwork in second, third and forth. In second it would fly up to about sixty degrees, third was about forty-five and fourth it would do a nice how do you do hop. A friend of mine had one and he did a complete summersault and I learned from his lesson and that was pretty cheap for me.
Well I loved that old FX. I drove all the way from Hamilton to Atlanta, Georgia with a friend of mine on the back. That motor was bolted right to the frame and at seventy miles an hour teeth would fly out of your mouth all on their own. I still have gaps in my molars from that ride.
The following video will give you more reasons why we should meet up at Port Dover on Friday June the 13th.
Posts
