I bought a New/old 1978 Harley’s Sportster. How bad can it be ?

if you're not wrenching on the side of the road your Harley-Davidson I don't know if it's really a Harley-Davidson a few months ago I bought a brand new 1978 Harley-Davidson with zero miles and after doing a few things to it we got it to run but then the Dark Side of buying a 45-year-old new motorcycle out of the crate started to show its head the bike had some very interesting issues because it sat for so long but my mechanic no no my super Mechanic Dave from Tennessee was able to get them all fixed not only will I be riding this bike for the first time but we're also going to put it on the dyo to see if AMF Harley-Davidson was lying to us when they said that this was going to be the most powerful Sportster of my lifetime then we're going to add up the purchase price plus all the cost of repairs I had to put into it and see if this was a financially awful decision or the second coolest thing you could possibly do second coolest behind whatever John mik is doing right now and we're going to see if this actually works oh god oh it's awesome let's go see this bike so I jumped in the clous come on clouse pressed the button and then pretended to leave without my camera guy so you can see what that looks like Q 5sec [Applause] [Music] Montage this might be the six maybe fifth 40 something year old motorcycle that I bought in a box and this Harley started up pretty easily it wasn't that bad started up pretty well and it idled instantly which was very impressive but this one had some unique problems that I didn't foresee having I didn't know that was a thing but I think part of the issue was these things were never made to sit they were never made to sit and be inside of a a crate for 45 years then we rode up to crusty grunt Cycles to see my friend [Music] Dave there it is what's up Dave oh what's up Sean how you doing man just giving her a good wipe down before what you got here good to see it man you too man what do you think looks great that's a good looking bike she runs great too really yeah so one what was wrong with it so a couple of things uh the inside of the tank even though it had no gas the moisture had eating away a lot of the liner and stuff like that and exposed the bare metal inside there and it was starting to rust so we went ahead and eted the inside of the tank and we Reign the inside of the tank we replaced the fuel line as well as petcock when we pulled the the air cover off the air filter it just crumbled in our hands charged the battery up the original battery that's the original battery that's the original battery I changed the fluids uh flush the brakes and then once that all got done we pulled the primary cover off and we realized that the the clutch Hub had excessive play side to side movement went ahead and tore that down replaced that we also found that the uh steel plates were all warped uh so we went ahead and ordered a a clutch set from DP brakes you think they were warped from the beginning because this is AMF it's very possible it could have come from the factory warped these things were known for you having to learn how to hit neutral before you came to the stop sign right I would say that it was probably they were probably warped from the factory okay when this bike came out it claimed 55 horsepower I don't know about all that I don't know about that we're going to find that out we're going to find that out 55 horsepower is a lot of horsepower you know for back back then for these old bikes yeah heck yeah oh we changed the tires too tires were dry rotted well cool let's um let's fire it up that sounds awesome side note I want to ride the motorcycle that requires this brake right here what motorcycle needs this and I want I want to ride it that's for later on today I got to do brakes on the truck all right did you ride it yeah how's it run great man I've done 5 1/2 miles on all right all right I'm going to take it for a spin I can't wait to ride it let's get her backed out man so before I take this bike for a spin just want to tell you guys you know we we do dangerous and sketchy things all the time and you know what it's pretty awesome but you need to protect yourself from the dangers of online that's why this video is sponsored by surf shark not only does it protect you but it protects all your devices with their unlimited device feature keeping you and your family safe from Big Tech and big government creeping in on your your data and then selling it to other people and this is my favorite part you can watch TV shows in different countries on your streaming service by changing your IP address Let me Give an example let's say you're traveling abroad and you want to watch your favorite show oh no you can't watch it because you're in zabumafu all you have to do is use your VPN to tell the internet that now you're in the great country of the US OFA and now you're watching blue like a boss or you can watch all the cool things that you can't watch in your country but other countries are allowed to watch for for whatever goofy reason basically you can bypass censorship everywhere with surf shark and liberate your internet it also protects you from trackers malware and fishing attempts with some incredible technology so I trust surf shark to protect my info online I don't have to worry about it anymore so go check out surf shark and get an extra 3 months for free by using promo code bikes and beards let's take this thing for a spin [Music] getting a chance to ride this time piece was aw awesome I was also calmed into to Dave who was driving the camera guy in front of me I do this so let me and the driver both know exactly what's going on for everyone's safety but also mainly for my safety so I don't get run over and for extra benefit Dave got to fil me in on his thoughts of this bike so don't get scared when randomly Dave's voice kind of Pops in here oh man this feels great this bike is 45 years old so if you bought this bike when you were 18 you'd be what 63 that's incredible ible so to compare this to a modern day Harley the cable clutch is significantly harder these are buckhorn handlebars they're kind of a little uncomfortable I thought I'd like them better but you're supposed to grip them less like a hammer and more like a screwdriver the braking is pretty awful on the line of dangerous Harley's never been known for great breaks that's for D sure yep people say sport Serv are for girls this sport ster is not because I'm a pretty strong guy I got pretty strong hand strength some would say I've got the hand strength of 10 men and this is tough this clutch is not easy it's a man's clutch it's a man's clutch either that or she's a hell of an iron worker you got a big old hand it's almost like they designed this lever to take away any leverage that you may have had well those things were designed originally to compete against the European market you know the bsas the Nortons the Triumph those are smaller framed bikes man they're not big Harley's absolutely now you got to learn how to ride the bike before you have to deal with a heavy bike I call it motorcycle balance once you have it ride the biggest thing you can find and then after getting back from an amazing ride on an amazing day we had a slate problem hey Dave we're leing a little bit hey Dave did the float Bowl get stuck on you when you were driving it uh no did it just get stuck yeah it's fine when I was riding but then when I pulled over so ended up not being a big deal and it was what I suspected it was you wouldn't really have the whole experience with an old Harley if you weren't wrenching on it a little bit right even even though it's a brand new the float got stuck down causing the fuel to run out of the Overflow tube this is kind of normal Harley-Davidson stuff if you're not wrenching on the side of the road you're Harley-Davidson I don't know if it's really a Harley-Davidson we jiggled it a little bit and put it back together and then I was ready to find out what my bill was for all the work that Dave did I paid 15,500 $ for that bike all the work that Dave did let's go see what I have total so here's the two invoices we got for you the first one that's that's mainly all the service stuff your grand total of1 18584 after tax and then for the clutch plates in the primary gasket you were at 12190 so pretty much 2,000 bucks to get this thing Road worthy that means I got 17500 in this bike still not that bad but the next biggest question is does that thing make as much power as they told us it did let's go to the dyno and find out and now it's time to see if AMF Harley was telling us the truth about how much power this bike really made so I love Dino day although it's generally disappointing it was disappointing with the Orange County Chopper bike it was disappointing with Craig's TR Turbo Bike however it was not disappointing with my Turbo Road King that made an incredible amount of power I don't know what's your guess throw in the comment comments they claim 55 horsepower on this thing and it was supposed to be it said on the ad in 1978 this is the most powerful sportser of your lifetime let's go see what this thing lays down all right so we're over here at M&M Machine Shop in Columbia Tennessee this is Jim we just got done putting air on the tire and we're going to put on the dno and see what kind of power it makes you have a guess they claim 55 horsepower at the wheel probably that that's probably going to be about right even if really yeah so a lot of times when you put your bike on for a dyo run the place will make you sign a waiver in case it blows the engine up because that happens you know you're P you're pushing it as hard as it can go no different than you just you know go into red line on the street but for whatever reason sometimes they blow up on dinos it's rare but they don't want to be liable for it can this do 300 horsepower 250 250 so what he's doing now is he's connecting some wires so we can see the RPMs now we have 19 mil on this bike what are the chances that it blows up we'll figure it out and all this fun motorcycling reminds me of one of my favorite Bible verses Proverbs 35-6 trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your path straight making sure the bike's off warmed up getting in the proper gear that it needs to be and then whenever he's got the the computer dial in he's going to floor it and we're going to get some numbers and just about the time we were finished with the dyno we were visited by a very special friend [Music] so 44 horsepower 42 foot PB of torque that feels right to me we're riding the bike somewhere between 10 and 15% loss of like through from the engine to the powertrain a lot of times when they give you a a number they give the highest number that's to the to the crank you're going to lose some through the chain through the wheels and all that stuff so I'm not a math wizard but I I think this a little more than the the the normal percentage drop so I think they may have been overestimating the power on the bike well we can tell too the bike needs to be tuned up okay and just having your tire pressure down 7 or eight lbs can can change your horsepower reading four five horsepower wow so it's it's pretty sensitive so then maybe it is maybe it's a little closer than I thought maybe it is pretty close to that 55 but they claimed that this was the most powerful Sports of my lifetime now this magazine article was written before I was alive but I got another sportser that I think actually is the most powerful sportser of my lifetime let's go bring it out so I backed off the 78 and then brought in the big guns this is the Sportster s and Harley-Davidson claims that this thing is sitting at 120 horsepower and up until recently this would have been the most powerful motorcycle hardly ever made other than the pan Amica and other than their new CVO bikes you might remember this bike this sherf 2.0 this is the bike that Craig tried to trick me with when his tri-turbo sherf bike made like 30 horsepower and my nitrous powered sherf bike made 100 30 something so AMF Harley was actually pretty close not that far off and they were fairly honest of the horsepower on this let's see how new Harley-Davidson is as far as I know I've never seen a video of anyone putting one of these on the dyno to really test it out and this is a completely stock bike and that's when the problem started I was so excited to see what this bike would make in terms of horsepower that I didn't even stop to see if it even worked because like every Facebook Marketplace ad I've ever read says it ran when I parked it I got to be honest with you I'm really hoping this thing run cuz I haven't heard it run in like maybe a year so cross your fingers so I put a battery jump box on it assuming that the reason it was unresponsive is because a dead battery but that did not help but when we put a multimeter up to the battery it read 12.8 volts which should be enough to turn on the gauges but still nothing completely unresponsive so then I resorted to calling a Harley-Davidson dealership to see if there was a master fuse and good news for us there was and he told me exactly where it was but death fuse was not bad so now we're back to square one after messing with this thing for about an hour we still had nothing I guess we're not getting this thing to run or make any dyo power all right well guess we'll get this thing off of here I guess that is the uh most powerful Harley of my lifetime I going to make zero horsepower so the AMF Harley beat out the new Harley in raw horsepower I don't know how that happened or what's wrong with that one but in the past couple months I sold off all my trailers except for my big flat bed trailer uh trailer Swift because I have one getting built for me in Indiana I'm told it's like the coolest trailer I've ever seen and I can't wait to see it so they told me it's ready let's go get it all right so me and my buddy Brock we made it to where Indiana somewhere Indiana we an ATC trailer they built a trailer for bikes and beards and uh we're going to go see it Brock's going to be the uh the camera guy I'm the camera guy yeah I I forgot to tell you but you're the camera guy now let's go find this uh trailer it should be pretty cool like should be I'm pretty they sent me a couple pictures of it I've never seen a trailer like this before I can't wait let's go see it I'm excited should we just walk in like whatever door so ATC if you don't know stands for aluminum trailer company or as the Brits say aluminium aluminium I don't know where to go hey I don't know where to go I'm looking for a man is there a boss man around here where's the front at be all way the building can we walk through the building I can walk all right yeah my next trailer needs to be that so we went to the wrong building so after going to the wrong building we finally made it to the right building where we met with Jeff but before we saw my trailer I convinced him to show me how the trailers were made and I got to say it was pretty impressive the facility was huge I mean just ginormous and it was extremely clean the first station we stopped at was the cut line This is where they cut all the pieces to build each trailer each cart sitting here is an entire trailer then we went to the welding line where everything gets welded by these ginormous hanging welders and remember never look at the welding Arc or the welder himself in his eyes or his hair never then we went to the floor line where they put in the floors each line has around 80 minutes to finish the job before it's sent to the next one then the interior and exterior walls got installed and this could be either metal or wood well the exterior is always metal after that they did the most important part which is the one piece metal roof which is one of the reasons why these trailers last so long and then it was time for me to see my trailer specifically designed for transporting motorcycles and Motorcycle Accessories is it in the lunchroom yeah wow there it is right there all right this is a b-roll moment let's get that [Music] b-roll you got to make noises with your mouth when you're doing b-roll stuff like epic noises like [Music] like some people know it's epic so this is awesome this looks great the reason I'm I decided to go with aluminum yeah cuz I I buy these new trailers and this this part of it looks all nice when I first get it within 6 months it's all rusted out it looks it looks like it looks like it's like it's like 20-year-old trailer yeah aluminum it'll look like that forever yeah what's great about aluminum is it'll it'll o oiz but it only oxidizes at the very beginning level and so once you it oxidizes it gets a little bit of a Milky finish which it already has and it looks that way but then it doesn't continue to regenerate and destroy the metal like it does in steel right this looks great what do they call this this is like seamless it's a 3M tape it's our screwless uh application yeah yeah so yeah it actually has a special 3M tape they use it on a bunch of aircraft type applications we've been using it for 20 some odd years it's very well well proven yeah that's awesome mhm gives a nice clean look especially doing Graphics or something like that here's something you got these you got these uh these Jacks if you've ever been in the situation where you need those you know what I'm talking about where it's not connected to the truck you're loading something up that's heavy and the whole trailer tilts up that's what those Jacks Are Awesome for Let's uh let's do it let's pop it open that's not bad that's that's pretty cool this is a new line you were telling me about well what's what's unique about this this is our stove 450 and what's really unique about this is that we have this track system that goes up at the top and we have a track system that goes down here at the bottom and so what's really incredible about this is all of the components every single one of these components in this trailer integrat into this track system and so if you decide you want to have the sofa at a different spot or if you decide you know I'd rather have this cabinet to flip you know horizontal you can or you know I'd rather have this cabinet up over here all of it's configurable and so depending on how you're going to use it for that weekend or that Adventure you can configure it however you want and then this is how it is in the bed position you'd want to have these uh extra legs down okay but when you went the couch position this will roll all over and now you've got a nice place to sit down relax you're on a dirt bike trip you're on a road trip something got a little cup holder for you up here yo that's not bad that's pretty nice this is awesome this is pretty cool so all all these things that you you want to bring with you on your trailer they're always rolling around hitting stuff banging in and stuff driving you nuts just they have a there's a spot built in for it you know and and the these are all interchangeable if if you if you you can get when when you buy the trailer you get one later you can you guys are still making new stuff oh yeah yeah yeah you know you still making new stuff so later something cool comes out oh me get that thing yeah you're exactly right because you know if you'd buy just a regular trailer that has like no components in it you can build it up to this trailer just give it time whenever you whenever you want to add components to it some modular what's going on here so this is an in floor compartment uh you had mentioned you wanted some extra storage space whether you put your straps in there whatever it is that's the coolest thing smuggling stuff I've had people put can you step in there yeah it's it's about the size of a crib yeah I've had people actually um put a little drain hole in it and you can put beer in there you can put ice in there you can whatever you want anyway some people have made that into a little cooler as well and then this up here is where your electrical um components are integrated so you've got your 30 amp service um and as I mentioned up there at the front this has a converter in it as well so every time you're plugged into 110 like we are right now it's actually charging your battery and you're running your 12vt lights right now off of the 110 power all right and these are all LED lights yeah LED lights which look really really nice got some oh look at that yeah do do you yeah pop that one more time and this is like your radio and USB you've got two interior speakers and then two exterior speakers it can switch just play on all of them at the same time or you can switch them yeah I got to see this open up we've all been in situations you're in the trailer you're fixing something you're doing something you're moving something it's a hot day outside you were you're you're begging for a breeze to come through this is this is and it doubles as an awning yeah and then on top of it let's go look at the other side there you go there's LED lights up there that's so cool yep so you've got a step here that'll go ahead and go in so it's not going to flop out no so the step it actually works off of a gas shock so there's a gas shock that holds it out and then when you're done you can just push it in and now the gas shock holds it in so you don't have any Clips or anything like that for awesome and you want to put the awning out here then yeah there's a button in here yeah it's got an extend and retract button here there you can have it halfway out uhhuh yeah you could stop it anywhere along there and you can change the pitch of it too if you want yeah and then that little wheel is so it doesn't scratch up the scrip the the awning pitch is down it has a roller instead of a ripper oh and this has its own gas shock too yeah it keeps it open and keeps it closed got exterior Outlets there power ports yep and then the stuff like the uh like that table Yeah the table that can be pulled out here that can be because of the length yours is a 7 and 1/2 wide by 14 so it's a relatively short trailer still there's only so much space um out here but the table fits here but what's great is we're developing more and more components as you mentioned so in time you'll have a bunch of different options this table right here um it's a full down table so when you're ready to use it it just locks up in their place and then it's it's a pretty strong table and then you've got your helmet rack up here room for a couple helmets got room for more hanging rod stuff this is for your straps so you can go ahead and put your straps up here it gives you an organized place to put it so you your your buckles aren't bashing and scraping this the whole time and you have a charger up here yeah it's a USB charger there's an exterior light over here um in addition to the awning light okay oh I it you also have a separate light back here for your spoiler lights so spoiler lights yeah so everyone knows I got a spoiler loading at night and so forth you can go ahead and have some nice illumination back here on your ramp that's so cool and I I love this the the tires just out of the way yeah it's not getting all rusted and yeah beat up and stuff like that that's so cool yeah you do have the 135 BTU with heat strip and it's the low profile score for Shan nice score for Shan I got heat This Is The Life track that we use that goes up here and so what I want to do is include two of these so you can put them in your shop back at home oh cool and then if you ever decide you don't want this cabinet here take it out and you can put it in your shop and so what this do so then this cabinet's not sitting on the floor getting kicked around getting beat up it's on the wall yeah I love that so I was wondering how much lower that little storage compartment it brings it down past the frame like 1 in what's the weight of this thing uh the weight with all the options components is like 2700 lb that's so that's so light that's crazy even with all of your components with the awning with all of that stuff 2700 so you've got like 5,000 lb of payload in this but then inside the trailers where you have the lithium battery it's then the base of a center cabinet here right down here and what's really cool um it's not an AGM battery it's a high dollar lithium battery yeah yeah and it's actually um bluetooth enabled as well oh really so that you can actually connect your phone to it and you can look and see what the charge level is anything like that that's like that that batter one batter is like the equivalent of like what like five five like like marine batteries or something like that we did a comparison where we compared three of these batteries to like three of the AGM batteries for some of our stacker trailers where it goes up and the results of it just astounding how much more capacity you get out of this do I have solar panels yeah really it's a little 30 watt um so when that keeps that guy charged that's so cool [Music] awesome then I strapped down my BMW in my new trailer with the only straps that I trust tank straps someone's got to say it that ain't going nowhere that ain't going nowhere that ain't going nowhere that bike belongs in that trailer yeah now go ahead and so this is the rain base and they're going to turn this thing on it's full blast and it's going to be like a monsoon rain now we're going to go inside and see what it's like inside so to make sure that nothing leaks anywhere they run it through very very heavy rain I asked them if they do like foam parties in here and stuff like that I don't think they do but if I had one I would definitely do that cool trailer super cool room I'm dry that thing's dry watching them being made and how they're made that's a quality unit right there that's why that one's so much better than why why my other trailers leaked I saw my other trailer trailer started falling apart you know what I mean that's a quality unit then we loaded up the trailer and said goodbye we took a bunch of snacks from the free snack bar that I later Learned was not free and we headed home to Tennessee so I'm over here at s Cycles in Columbia Tennessee this is Sam Goodman shop he's kind of a motor ccle uh Legend around here I went to a couple other Harley-Davidson dealerships to see if I could they put a number on that sportser for me they don't know what they're looking at they know they're looking at but they don't know how to put a number on that stuff it's not their wheelhouse Sam might be one of the only guys who would who would know how to put a number on that thing so let's uh let's go see Sam and see what he says what's up guys just got a motorcycle I'd love for you to see exam you're going to you're going to appreciate this one all right 78 78 I unboxed it you really really I unboxed it it's got 20 miles on it I put all those miles on it wow Sean you've outdone yourself he partner you really outdone yourself what do you think that thing is worth 10 maybe 12 maybe 20 out of the box 20 mes on it would have been hard not to leave it in the box that stuff gets ruined inside the box it's hard for other people it's not hard for me this thing is gorgeous it is it's an AMF bike but this one doesn't seem to leak anything that's why I just looked under I'm like it it's the only one I've seen in a while that ain't got a spot under it got the big two into one pipe and stuff on Ste yep nothing was wrong with these machines other than that pump system and that was something to keep an eye on the Siamese exhaust and stuff still on it's nice so you think this thing maybe could bring 20 mhm I do I take it through M's auction or something like that it's got all the orasin everything on it it ain't nothing nothing missing on it someone told me if I were to send it to auction I I I should put the original tires on there take send them with it oh just send them with it just send them with it yeah everything great looks looks fantastic when is where I start I wouldn't back off of that either if I didn't have to I know you don't have to without thanks for helping me out with a price on it and a big thanks to Surf shark for sponsoring the video don't forget to click on the link in the description to get an amazing discount

Channel: Bikes and Beards

Views: 532,166

Keywords: bikes and beards, sean, caleb, motorcycles, srkcycles, srk, beards, bikes

Id: 41wS6E5xpak

Length: 29min 26sec (1766 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 27 2024