I recently found a box with some of the parts I accrued to do the change-over, but not all of them. I had a sheet complete with parts numbers for what was needed, but apparently the ink I used to write down all the pieces needed (it was a complete list) faded over time, and the legal pad sheet of paper cannot be read anymore.
If you can go online and get the info about doing this somewhere, I'll take a look at what's in that box, and compare it to what you turn up, and you can have anything I have left, for the cost of shipping.
I well-recall the GATT of circa-1980
(General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs) and the struggles H-D had to keep from becoming insolvent, and closing the business. I've posted about that before and the articles quoted here are a good introduction to the issues of Harley-Davidson trying to survive as the Japanese dominated the market. There is one or more Harvard Business School case study of the near-collapse/closing of H-D, and the management of H-D in later years. Here are some research papers on H-D:
https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=33130
https://www.researchgate.net/public...ards_Resuscitate_Harley-Davidson_in_the_1980s
https://mycomm.ch/harley-davidson-case-study/
Remember in the same time period, Yamaha launched an economic offensive upon Honda. They created new models with the intent of replacing Honda at #1 among Japanese motorcycle manufacturers. In hindsight, we know how that turned-out. Still, it was a great time to be a motorcycle consumer. Among Japanese manufacturers, I bought and owned 1980, '81, '82, '83, '85, '86, '87, '89 models (others before that decade, and others after that decade) and only one was smaller than 550cc. All were 4 stroke multi-cylinder road bikes. I may have even forgot about some, those are the ones I can think of.
There was a huge leap forward in technology applied to bikes, probably the greatest being the switch from air-cooled bikes to water-cooled bikes, and second to that, non-ferrous metal frames in aluminum, with differing designs, going from small-dimension box-section tubing, to wide perimeter-beam frame members, including swingarms, and thirdly, great improvements in suspension components, including the switch to radial tires and the wheels sized to benefit from them.
Yes, there were 'hybrids,' like the Suzuki oil and air-cooled bikes like the '86 GSXR 750 and 1100, with their 'Slingshot' frames, but putting all of it together into one package was the 1987 Yamaha FZR1000 with a perimeter aluminum wide box-beam frame (
'Deltabox') to provide maximum rigidity where it was needed, and some designed flexibility to make the ride less-harsh; a 3 intake, 2 exhaust valves transverse four cyl engine, with a design using pressure die-casting in aluminum for which Yamaha got multiple patents. Then there were the Mavic-style hollow wheels, designed for the use of radial tires, among the first Japanese motorcycles to use them. The FZR750 got Ohlins suspension front and rear, making it with its 6 speed gearbox several thousand dollars more-expensive than its bigger-displacement brother. The FZR750 was a homologation special built for racing, but if you had the cash, you could buy one. And it was street-legal. Holding an AMA expert license helped.
Yamaha Fzr750r | Cycle World | JULY 1987
Another article about the ownership of Harley-Davidson by American Machine and Foundry from the late 1960's to 1981, when a group of employees managed to finance a buyout of AMF. The company nearly collapsed before the deal was made. Many people say,
"them damn AMF'ers near-kilt my mo-sycle company!" In a push to produce more product, quality suffered, and while the exponential growth of the domestic USA motorcycle market encouraged Japanese companies to enter new parts of the market, they voluntarily stayed-away from the large-displacement air-cooled V-twin market. Until the Virago, that is. Then the Suzuki Intruder, the Kawasaki Vulcan, and the Honda Ascot and Shadow appeared. It was like waiting for the ice to break up at the end of the winter, so commerce and recreation could begin again (you Southern folk just gotta take our word on this). In this case 'commerce and recreation' was selling as-many V-twins in different displacements as quickly as they could bring them to market. Still H-D was the #1 seller of large-displacement V-twins.
Not everyone was unhappy with AMF-owned Harley-Davidson. Here's my Daytona Bike Week buddy's bike being picked-up from the shop today, another friend of mine I've known 40+ years, works on H-D's exclusively as a cottage industry. This 1980 80 cu. inch Low Rider got a new single-fire ignition kit w/new sensor, electronic box, new ignition coils, and replacement of both head gaskets and other top-end gaskets. It runs well for a 43 year-old Shovelhead. He's owned it since new and while I've owned and piloted many various bikes to the streets of Volusia County FL in the past 38 years of Bike Week we've attended, this AMF survivor Hog is the only motorcycle he's ridden there, in all those years. He also has two Ironhead Sportsters, an 883 '70 and a 1,000cc '76 in a '75 frame, I think it is. You may refer to him as a "
glutton for punishment."
No that's not how he usually dresses to ride, he was just loading the bike into his pickup for a trip back to Palm Beach County FL.
My '92 at Daytona International Speedway, years ago.
