I’ve been neglectful in posting updates and pics on this project, I know. Everything is moving along, just slowly, while I wait on a few parts to come back from chrome (again). All the work and parts were scheduled to flow perfectly, but some issues with chrome quality meant sending parts back to be re-dipped. Unfortunately sometimes delays like this are simply the cost of doing business when you want everything perfect at the end.

Anyways, to satisfy those interested until I get the last few bits back from chrome and finally finish this beast, here are some pics of when I got it into a rolling chassis and when I first test fit the fenders.

If anyone has questions or is interested in chiming in, you can get involved on the forums here.

I’ve got a new project in the works, should be really nice when it’s done. Hopefully I’ll get pics up sooner than I have with Candy (my project from 2011). For now, here are pics of the paint, still in progress.

This marks the culmination of a project that was discussed seemingly forever but never tackled. This project involved taking a Harley batwing fairing and heavily modifying it to fit the VTX in a specific manner. I know this isn’t new to the VTX world, I just tackled it with a slightly different flair…

I’ve written up some of the details here in the tech pages, and discussion, questions, etc are all taking place here on the forums.

I just thought I’d throw this out there as a “service bulletin” for anyone interested. I took a bike in recently for work because the fuel pump would not prime. I suspected the pump was fine, everything else on the bike was in working order and the bike was intermittently shutting down while out on the road. 35k miles on the odometer, all the simple checks came back fine – relays in working order, kill switch functions, etc, etc, etc… What struck me as odd was that you should always get battery voltage (~12V) at the engine stop relay, even with the key off. I was reading battery voltage there with the key off, but when I turned the key on this voltage dropped to roughly 1.5V. I figured I had either a serious draw/short somewhere that wasn’t tripping fuses, or something like what I found…

Under the left side cover you have your main battery cable that feeds your 2 main 30A fuses. The wiring from those 2 main fuses then runs through a simple 2 pin plug before running over to the keyed ignition and so on. The plug looked almost perfect upon a cursory inspection, but when I went to separate the plug is when it got interesting:

This was the source of the problem on the bike and unfortunately it was caught too late to save the plug and some of the wiring. I had to replace several inches of wire and add a whole new plug. This was simply a matter of corrosion buildup on the connectors over time and could have been avoided with a little contact cleaner to clean up the contact areas. It won’t hurt to separate this plug, clean the contacts and then pack them with a little dielectric grease to prevent further corrosion (just don’t go overboard with the grease).

For those who patiently waited (and those who not-so-patiently harassed me through email ) I finally finished the write-up for adjusting the valves on the VTX 1800. As soon as I can get a VTX 1300 apart to snap comparable pictures I’ll adapt the existing write-up to the 1300 also. In the interim, feel free to check it out here.

I want to give a big thanks to the guys who helped “proof” the finished article, without their assistance and insight there’s no telling how much longer this might have taken.