[kdkerr2]

I gave up on my FXR swingarm project and decided to go an easier route. I had an 05 FLHTC swingarm which was the H-D Electra Glide Standard or Classic I think.I think it was in '02 Harley beefed up their bagger swingarm after complaints about "Center Steering"! Anyhow these swingarms were much stronger and more robust than the earlier bagger swingarms and of course those on FXR's. My biggest criticism on the FXR swingarm was the 1"x2"x.125" rectangular tubing would over the years deform if you overtorqued your axle nut. That's not a problem on these new bagger swingarms because the axle mounts are made from solid steel forgings which are welded to the swingarm. I did some research on this conversion before I decided to do it. In addition to using one of the newer H-D Airstrike wheels with a one inch axle the new swingarm sports a new 4 piston caliper which was one of the best rear calipers the Motor Company ever issued. I've got one on my Dyna Super Glide and it's rear stopping power is phenomenal! Also years ago I'd foolishly converted my FXRC to a chain drive and I wanted to put the belt drive back on. Also the newer swingarm had a self aligning cammed surface on the axle which keeps your wheel from getting out of alignment when you put it back together.

 

[kdkerr2]

Here's a pic of the right side of the FXR after I got the swingarm installed on the Harley. Installing the swingarm wasn't too much of a problem. I'd never installed an FXR swingarm before. Installing the wheel was a bit more problematic because of the caliper. I finally had to find a You Tube video and after I watched the guy assemble his wheel it was a piece of cake. Note the four piston caliper. I bought a Drag Specialties rebuild kit from Ebay and rebuilt it. I'd done this before and it was no problem. The caliper is

braced on a 1/4" flange welded to the inside of the right swingarm fork. These calipers are some of the best Harley ever sold. The rotor's off an XR1200 Sportster front wheel. I drilled out the .3125" mounting holes to a .375" clearance hole and it fit right on.

 

[kdkerr2]

Back to the swingarm. I ordered the '05 Bagger swingarm bushings from Ronnie's H-D. However these would not press into the 05 Electra Glide swingarm. Nor did my mechanic Shotgun know how to install them. We're obviously missing something here. So I finally ordered the Sta-Bo bushing set and installed them with a C-clamp. I ordered the Sta-Bo III because it was designed to use the .625" old style swingarm pivot and the '02 and up H-D bagger swingarm. The 02 and up bagger swingarms use a .750" swingarm pivot and can't be used on the older FXR trannies because of their smaller hole thru the rear of the tranny.

 

[kdkerr2]

Here's the front pulley and a used H-D FLT drive belt which I picked up at a swap meet. I didn't realize that the 05 belt drive had 139 teeth on it whereas the old FXR's had only 136 teeth. So I couldn't get my axle installed because my wheel was too far forward. After Kevin at Sta-Bo straightened me out on this I purchased the belt and Voila! Everything came together! Also I found out that the 05 baggers used a 1 1/8" belt because they went from a 130 rear tire to a 140 and had to run a narrower belt to clear the fatter tire. However someone on Facebook told me you could run the 1 1/8" drive belt on the 1 1/2 pulleys and they would self align. At the bottom of the pic on the right is my old drive chain.

 

[kdkerr2]

Here's a left side view. The Progressive Suspension shock is a standard 13.5" length and as you can see it's too short for this app. The bagger shock hardpoint is located further back on the swingarm so if I ran the stock length shocks the FXR would be setting too low in the rear. I've got some 14.25" PS shocks on the way. They should correct the problem.

 

[Uncle Salty]

Interesting endeavor. Looks like you have a handle on it though.

 

[kdkerr2]

Uncle Salty said: "Looks like you have a handle on it though."
We'll see! I wasn't too sure about this conversion. I'm pretty sure it's been done before. I talked to Kevin at Sta-Bo and he cautioned me about a few things. My previous engineering change was when I found a crack in my clutch hub keyway. My FXR's an 87 with the tapered tranny mainshaft. So I bought a '90 series splined mainshaft and everything swapped out including the clutch basket. But this was years ago and I had no input so I didn't know that it would work. It did.

 

[Turboprop]

This is a pretty common conversion for FXRs and earlier baggers. Many have used the later harley/brembo caliper and hanger as it only requires one hole to be enlarged from 25m to 1" and a different axle spacer on the right side. There are a bunch of discussions about this and many pictures. All three of my FXRs have this conversion as do countless others in the FXR community.

 

[kdkerr2]

My Progressive Suspension 14.25" 412 shocks just arrived by UPS. Unfortunately for this project my fender struts are in bad shape. They were OEM on my 87 FXRC. I checked up on the Web and new struts are around $170-185 for new ones whether old style or new. Also they're all chromed and I'm not into chrome. So I reckon I'll take them to my paint and body man so he can glass bead them and then paint them gloss black.

 

[kdkerr2]

Here I've done a couple of mockups with new shocks first mounted where the newer style fender struts will mount them. The second pic is with the shocks mounted where the older style fender struts will run them. The older style shocks are mounted about 2.200" further back so the rear wheel is slightly lower then when running the newer style struts. It looks like I will be running the older style fender struts. The final pic shows the older style FXR fender struts.

 

[kdkerr2]

Here I'm scraping off the old outer primary gasket. This is the hardest part of the whole job! Does anyone make an outer primary gasket with the rubber bead on both sides? My replacement gasket only has the rubber seal on one side. So I usually put a hi temp silicon glue on the inner primary. That's where the old paper gasket is stuck. After I get most of the paper off I'll clean it up with my Dremel and a bristle brush. Next comes the primary chain drive and clutch hub!

 

[kdkerr2]

Bah, Humbug! When I checked this hole on the inner primary, the one below the shifter lever, I found a heli-coil in it! And since it's supposed to be a thru hole, I said,"What the Heck?"! So my buddy Paul helped drill out the heli-coil. And when I blew all the chips out of the hole on the tranny I saw that someone had started to do a heli-coil repair on the tranny but had never finished! So tomorrow I'll have to drill out the stripped hole, tap it out with the 5/16" heli-coil tap and install a heli-coil. One step forward and two steps backward!

 

[kdkerr2]

Success! I drilled and tapped out a piece T6 aluminum bar stock before I tried to it on the Harley. But I got 'er done! Now I have to make sure the bolt's not too long before I install the inner primary. After installation of the heli-coil I threaded in a 5/16" bolt and it went in with no resistance!

 

[kdkerr2]

Fender Struts Modified
Here I've gone and drilled an extra .500" clearance hole in my early FXR fender struts. I decided to use the forward .500" hole on the frame to give the fender struts more support. I also had to drill new .500" shock bolt holes in the fender because the fender didn't have them already installed. Apparently it was only set up for the later style of FXR fender struts. And I also opened up the fender struts rear holes because they were drilled for .3125" clearance holes not .375". My saddlebag standoffs have .375" holes on them.

 

[kdkerr2]

Inner Primary Installed
I just got my inner primary housing installed and sealed [I hope]. Steady jerks as my buddy Mike Brown used to say!

 

[kdkerr2]

Starter Ring Repaired
I had to replace my starter ring on my clutch hub. The old one was chipped on several teeth. Here's a pic after I installed the new starter ring. If anyone wants to read up on the details of this repair, here's the link: (7) Gear Ring Repair | V-Twin Forum

 

[kdkerr2]

Primary Drive Installed
Here I've reinstalled my primary drive. I still have to adjust my clutch, seal up the primary drive housing and add a quart of primary fluid.

 

[kdkerr2]

I've finally finished this project. Mad Max [my FXR] had some serious problems, like a bad starter drive and a sticking starter solenoid but I've finally got him back home and did a 28 mile test ride. Everything looks good and seems to be working okay. After I got back from the test ride I saw that my left rear turn signal had broken off it's mount and was hanging by it's leads! I fixed this and I'm ready for another test ride. Here's one of the pix of the rear end.

 

[kdkerr2]

Here's Max's right rear end. You can better see the 05 H-D 4 piston caliber, the XR1200 slightly modified front rotor and the snail shell axle adjuster which is far superior to the original FXR axle adjusters. Also the Progressive Suspension 412 14.25" new shocks.

 

[kdkerr2]

Thread Summary
In summation I upgraded the rear end of my '87 FXRC by installing a used 05 H-D FLHTC bagger swingarm along with a new H-D swingarm pivot, Sta-Bo III swingarm bushings, a used 05 H-D FLHTC four piston rear caliper, a used 05 FLHTC 1" rear axle and axle nut, a used H-D AirStrike 16" rear wheel and with new Progressive Suspension 412 14.25" shocks. I had to use these longer shocks because the geometry on the new swingarm was different from the original FXR geometry and using a stock 13.5" shock would have made the bike too low in the rear. I used a front H-D XR1200 front 11.5" rotor with the bolt holes opened up to .375". I used the early style fenders struts which mounts the shocks further back on the frame than the later model struts. I also converted my Harley back to belt drive from chain drive. Because I used a bagger swingarm [which is slightly longer than the FXR swingarm] I had to purchase a used 1 1/2" belt drive which was from a '98 bagger and had 139 teeth [FXR belts had 136 teeth]. I found out that other Harleyers with FXR's had also done this upgrade. The biggest advantage is the 1" rear axle with the snail shell adjusters keeps the rear wheel perfectly aligned whenever you adjust the belt tension and also the 4 piston rear caliper which gives you more stopping power than the original 2 piston caliper. This concludes the thread.

Edit: IIRC the original OEM rear FXR caliber only had 1 piston.