BAOUCO BUILD : Harley Davidson Ironhead IBT

Details:

• 20” Moto Iron Springer fork : Black : 113-0039 (standard rake : 30%):

• Harley Softail FLSTSC Heritage Springer Front Brake Caliper

• Tank: Custom Dual Tank Cap 12L : Choppertank “STATE PRISON” Teardrop Flat Big" 2.8 gallon with Frisco mount (shallow tunnel)

• OEM Harley Bobber Solo Saddle : OEM 52000277

• REAR WHEEL : 130/90R16“ Rear Laced (chrome)

• FRONT WHEEL : 16"x3.00 rim Front Laced (chrome) Sportster

• Harley Davidson Keihin butterfly carburetor 76-78 Sportster 38mm venturi

• Switchgear : Aluminium CNC Black

• Oil pressure gauge on rocker box

• LED brass outer ring Headlight

• LED brass Taillight

• LED yellow Spotlight

• Mudguards : Custom front and rear

• Speedo : Mini retro Harley style

• Drag bars (700mm wide)

• Clutch & Brake controls : Polished aluminium

An amateur garage build.

After building a few custom bikes based on BMW airheads, Yamaha scramblers and old Nortons, the goal of this project is to work on an evolving custom bike to learn more about fabrication, painting, and overall style exercises using an old Harley platform. A 1972 Harley XLH1000 was chosen due to its smaller footprint compared to the Big Twins. It was originally imported from Tennessee in the US to France and hadn't been on the road since 2005.
The plan was to remove many of the stock parts and showcase the Ironhead old school engine with the more compact look of the earlier XL frames.

As a first custom Harley build, it quickly became apparent that there are troves of custom parts in catalogues for anything from bobbers to choppers to scramblers and more - with the inevitable risk of a ballooning budget. So an additional challenge was self-imposed; to see if as many parts as possible could be sourced secondhand in the local online small ads, or else fabricated in the garage.

The result is a very mechanical bobber-esque aesthetic - hence the name, the gaelic for heavy metal, "MIOTAL TROM". The look is reinforced with the Moto Iron Springer-style front-end. It had been removed from a big twin, so it needed the head bearings adapter kit to work with the Sportster frame. The seat is an OEM Harley Bobber Solo Saddle, which nicely completes the upper lines of the bike. Even the switchgear is billet aluminium. No plastic here.

The long evenings trawling for parts and searching for inspirations and ideas was an important part of the build process. And you can end up meeting some very interesting characters when exchanging cash for parts at a carpark.

The engine is basically stock, with drag pipes fitted with long dB killers to just take the edge off the potato potato without smothering it too much.
The relatively modest sized custom tank keeps the focus on the engine and the overall mechanistic aesthetic of the bike.

The build took about 7 months to complete and is used regularly. It's important for me that it functions as well as being interesting visually.
And ... even better when it gets a kickstart. Work in progress.