The Beast in all it’s glory. This bike started life as a stock Road King.
This Road King project started out innocently enough; it was one hell of a nice day and I was working in the shop with the roll up door open when a guy pulled up on a bone stock ‘04 Road King.
I came out to the gate to see what he needed and he told me was looking for a fabricator. Someone had given him my name so naturally, I let him in. I gave him the standard shop tour and sat down to discuss some basic ideas as well as set an appointment to discuss the transformation in more detail. In the first draft, we retained the stock bags and a 180 tire for the front and rear were selected.
A bare naked street machine donning her new shoes.
CHOP-SUEY
The new tail section is adding a lower seat height and bringing the center of gravity to the ground. There will be no more sitting on this bitch, it is all riding in the machine and being one with it.
Once the neck rake was completed and after the new front end was on, we fabbed a custom top motor mount and mocked up the bike with the new wheels. Then the decision to change out the rear with a 240 rear tire was made. While we had to wait for a new wheel we were lucky enough to get what we needed from P.M. to keep the project moving.
Sleek and low. This is definitely not Grandpa’s Road King anymore.
From there it didn't take much time to get it chopped up and going in the new direction. While we had the frame cut apart the customer figured we might as well drop the seat as much as possible. The swingarm was stretched about 8″ to slam the seating area and widened enough for the new wheel. To clean things up, we decided to run a Performance Machine drive side brake system with a chain final drive. Since we planned on running Legend air shocks, the fender got tucked into the frame work and molded into the chassis.
Getting prepared for the new grill. Lucky devil’s bikes all seem to have a few touches to them that help distinguish them from the pack, this little baby is one of them.
Fat, nasty, 7-Gallon gas tanks hold the fuel for the Ruby Road King.
For tanks, the customer had selected a set of 7 gal twin tanks to make them fit the bike. The bottom of the tanks were cut out, reshaped, and welded back together and then stretched. Since the beast was fuel injected, a custom access panel, fuel bungs, and larger crossovers were used. To top off the tanks, I fabricated an aluminum dash panel with a tilted and frenched-in instrument bezel to hold the custom red Dakota digital Speedo
Evil fat tanks sans dash. Even in bare metal form you can see the time and quality craftsmanship The Devil puts into every component of his work.
The fat ass tank with slick-as-owl-shit tank panel/dash.
The sinister front cowl! It looks like a knuckle that’s prepared to punch through the air like an evil fist from hell.
Custom floorboard mounts.
Once the construction of the air dam and grill began, the customer and I designed adjustable floorboard mounts. Once I had the seat pan fabricated and foamed up, I then finished the floorboards so the customer could be fitted to the bike again. We did this to ensure we had the foot boards and bars in the right spot. We ordered up a set of beach bars with Climax controls and fabricated a custom set of risers that were welded and molded into the bars to get them in just the right spot.
Naked bars with raw finish and visible machine-work.
Floorboard and brake mounting system personally done by The Devil. I don’t think you’ll see these on any shelves anytime soon.
Lucky Devil custom motor mount.
Rear section with a touch or two designed to set this bike apart from the pack.
Seatwork in progress.
The final mock up is almost complete.
The LED light strip and the license plate housing enclosed in the fender.
For pipes we started out with the idea of chopping up the fishtail slip on's and building custom pipes to have one on both sides, but after a mock up or two we settled on the current custom duals. The bike was stripped down and all sheet metal work, welding, and finish work completed. Then we added some trim to mount led strips for turn and tail lights. Next the plate mount housing was fabricated and composite was fitted and glued in. We then turned it over to Chino to make all the fab work look even better.
The custom exhaust you expect to get when dealing with a true fabricator…not an assembler.
With mock up complete, it is time to remove everything for cleanup, paint, chrome, and final assembly.
Cleaned, Primered, and begging for her Candy paintjob.
Once Chino finished slickin this rascal down, he passed it off to Mike, who laid down a sweet blend of custom base colors and candy mixes. He coated this baby with enough clear to give it some sexy shine.
Freshly painted mistress of the night ready to slink into the nighttime a whisper sweet nothings into the ears of incorrigible deviants who will never get off the street.
At last, she was back on my lift getting the chassis up so we could install a drive train. As I mentioned before, Ruby (that’s the bike), is fuel injected, so hiding all this wire was going to be a hand full. While I was hard at it with the internal wiring and plumbing, Joe was finishing the hand stained and stitched seat and tool roll.
Hand-tooled bag.
I hacked, chopped, stretched, and soldered for what seemed like a life time. I tried to use custom mini coils to hide them better but the new Fuel infected stuff has sensors built into the stock coils. First, I cut an old stock one apart to see how Harley was getting a reading back to the computer in hopes of figuring out a way to adapt the custom coils. In the end, I found that not only did I need to use the stock coil, but I also had to stick with the stock plug wires also so the computer can get the proper reading. This worked out well since the stock plug wires were made the same length and were long enough to make it in the air dam, and a new lesson learned.
Kent holding the guts and the spinal cord of the would be custom.
The buck stops here! This is where more than one would-be builder has thrown in the towel and screamed into the air, “Fuck it! I can’t do this bullshit!”
This is a shot of a well planned, cleaned up wiring section shoved into a very tight space.
Once I finished screwing around with the electronics and got her rolling, I headed off to Mancuso Harley-Davidson to get her tuned to the new pipes and intake. With the help of a Power Commander and some fancy little tool called a dyno, hopefully we could get her dialed in straight? As expected, we were able to get her running like a finely tuned machine.
Joe also had the opportunity to design and build a custom travel bag, extra tool roll and stick on rear seat pad.
I had the pleasure of taking the opportunity to put a few miles on it and, as with most projects; I wish I was able to keep it for myself. This Custom Road King can also be seen on the pages of Hot Bike Volume 39. No 3 2007.
Truly a one-off custom bike. Absolutely still carrying an official H-D VIN and registration. This should be a hassle free bike for years and years to come that is guaranteed to turn heads wherever it goes. The Devil has once again outdone himself.
