You know when there's a bike in the garage that's just too ugly to ride? Well that's the start of this bike. The crew at Fuller Hot Rods (FHR) was fresh off the "Road Warrior" Road King they built for one of their customers. The new owner loved it, but almost too much. So much so that his old Road Glide just didn't cut the mustard. "The unnamed client came to us, and wanted what we like to call "a shave and a haircut-basically clean up the ugliest parts of the bike and make her not such an eyesore sitting in the garage," says Brian Fuller.
First Brian removed the extras: crash bar (engine guard), front blinkers, ugly pipes, and what not. Second, the new owner was riding to Harley's big celebration at its factory, so he needed a place to strap some goodies on. Brian continues, "We fabbed up a little luggage rack from steel. Nothing too crazy; just a nice little spot if you need it. We powdercoated it black so it would be good and durable."
The original wheels were pretty damn funny. They had these weird spikes that were bolted to them for decoration. Brian took them off and now has some cool Christmas tree decorations for the holiday season.
Once the wheels were done, Brian got the rear fender dialed in. Brian took out the taillight and butt-welded a new piece of steel in its place and made a license-plate mount there as well from steel bungs.
Surprisingly, the big work was actually replacing the hardware and brushing the trim. Brian says, "The owner doesn't like chrome, so we scotchbrited all pieces." Brian had a new guy working on it, and after 40 hours, he and Brian had enough. The satin finish is much more beefy looking than the chrome.
FHR uses ARP fasteners on all their projects. The fasteners are super-high strength stainless steel, so they're corrosion-resistant and way cool-looking with 12-point heads. Sounds easy, right? It's actually very tedious work. Some of the bolt heads needed to be turned down to fit properly. Each factory fastener had to be measured, cataloged, and matched with an ARP part number. It takes time, but is really worth the effort. You can't imagine how nice it is to remove all the fasteners or torque them with no worry whether it will fail. ARP's don't fail; it's always another part that will go first.
FHR removed all the body panels and sent them over to Brian Papa at Papa Studios. Brian is a Dupont Trainer and one hell of a pinstriper. Luckily for Brian (Fuller), he's only 15 minutes away. Brian P. painted everything a simple battleship blue custom mix-something nice and durable. After that, some nice hot -rod pinstripes were laid down to complete the look. Everyone agrees it's a much better look than the tribal action that was going before!
FHR sent the seat to Jerry Price in Alabama where he covered it in black leather. Jerry's an upholstery wizard with more than three decades of experience under his (presumably leather) belt. The seat turned out stylish and comfortable for the customer and his wife, just the way they wanted it.
Bryan Fuller and Ben Boyle, at FHR, built the stainless pipes. They're fabricated from 2-inch-diameter stainless steel with an old velocity stack turned into the tip. It's got a nice deep, throaty sound to it.
Once the crew put everything back together, the customer rode it from Atlanta up to Milwaukee and back without a hitch. Speed, comfort, and style...this is a great riding bike!