The advantage of old Harleys is you can stop and fix something out in the boonies. You don’t need to get parts shiped in from Japan, most stuff will be in any decently stocked farm store. (the advantage of a bike made with “tractor parts” as the rice burner guys used to call them). In fact a lot of the parts are off the shelf industrial items. I did have a notebook full of Harley parts that I had cross referenced to their industry standard part numbers when I was working on them a lot.
Old Harleys don’t really break that much anyway. The Tillitson carbs were a little touchy sometimes but the Bendix worked fine. The S&S on this FLH hasn’t caused me any trouble. Most problems with the S&S are usually traced to not having them jetted right. I would swap it even for the Bendix that this bike came with.
When we were “rolling” Harleys a lot the biggest money maker was taking “customized” bikes back to stock. There was a guy in DC (Andrew Jackson) who made a living selling Harley parts. He would usually make is a good deal swapping “custom” parts for stock, then he turned around and made more money swapping them the other way.
BTW if you do buy an old Harley be sure you understand how the serial numbers work. There are lots of them out there with bad numbers on them. Some have changed owners several times with a title/serial number that can’t possibly be right. I guess at a certain point it doesn’t really matter anymore.
I dont know but I almost could have asked him. I was riding with my son and we did a curve and my son leaned the wrong way and well…I am in the hospital lucky to be alive…broke my femur in half and totalled the new bike.
I’m sorry to hear that, Paul. A prayer in the wind for you and yours.
Anything we can do?
It took a while for my bride to understand the movement on the bike thing, too…but we got there…and there are still a lot of crazies out there not watchin’ for motos.
Paul, so sorry to hear this bad news. If there is ANYTHING that we can do for you, please do not hesitate to call on your friends. Best of luck. Keep us informed as the meds allow.
Nice looking ride bro. 
A prayer in the wind for you and yours.