“You won’t believe this,” Wilburn Roach said during a Bikernet Editorial meeting. “Johnny Humble nearly finished his bike when he discovered he forgot to mount a taillight. I’m not kidding. He didn’t want to drill holes in his new fangled rear fender.”
Johnny sat at the end of the cell door conference table and mumbled something about snitches being a dying breed.
Snake twitched in his seat and raised his hand. “What the fuck,” Bandit said?
Snake never said a damn thing at editorial meetings for fear he’d catch an assignment. He looked up and down the table, reached out and pulled his coffee cup near and took a swallow. He was the only member of the staff who drank from a chilled java mug every morning. That’s cause it was topped off with beer.
“Ah,” Snake started after the beer filled his throat with brave juice. “I had lunch with Mil Blair. He designed a belt guard that mounts to stock Softails that contains the bracket for a license plate and taillight.” Sweat was beading on his forehead before he shut up. Mil Blair owned Jammer Cycle, worked on the ER Streamliner and owned part of Easyriders once. He was a man to be trusted in this industry.
“Somebody investigate it before noon tomorrow,” Bandit spat and grabbed Sin Wu’s ass as she passed by with another coffee mug of beer for Snake.
I looked at Snake and decided I’d check it out. “It’s steel,” Snake said. “It’s not billet.”
I called Mil, “Mil, what’s up with the belt guard?”
“It’s steel,” Mil said, “I’ll send you instructions and some shots.” The phone went dead. Like the bitchin’ fuckin’ internet world we live in, in two minutes I had Mil’s shots and complete instructions, including the disclaimer:
Why the fuck would we publish tech tips if everything is supposed to be slapped together by trained professionals. I can’t afford trained anything. But here’s how the lesson goes:
1. Install the guard using the same mounting spots as the stock guard. Simple. The Sun Valley kit comes with all the fasteners and even a plate to protect the frame finish from the axle washer. Plus there’s one for the other side, and they both have positions for running lights or turnsignals.
2. Mount the taillight of your damn choosing to the bracket and run the wires through the protected railing under the guard. Dig this. There’s even a wire cover plate made for the back of the taillight bracket to cover the wires. It’s never a bad idea to run wire through shrink-wrap. They’re living around a lot of metal.
3. Run the Softail up on a center-stand jack or lift so the rear wheel is sans the weight. In other-words you can slip the axle out without working up a sweat. Take the pressure off dickhead.
4. Remove the old belt guard and toss the sonuvabitch.
5. Remove your rear axle, but make sure all the spacers stay in tack. That’s one reason to leave the tire on the ground, so it won’t drop and dislodge the spacers when the axle spits out.
6. Install the belt guard using the same swingarm tabs as the original belt guard. Use two bolts, two acorn nuts and 4 washers supplied. If there’s a square hole around use the carriage bolt with the square key in the square hole, dimwit.
7. Install the Sun Valley belt guard axle plates as you install your rear axle. Now tighten the two license plate support bracket bolts.
8. Make sure the axle spacers are in place as the axle slips through the wheel and brake caliper bracket. Use the thinner adjusting spacers supplied and check the belt tension and wheel alignment.
9. Tighten all nuts and bolts and check that nothing interferes with the wheel or the belt. Don’t forget that we also carry the Sun Valley motorcycle alignment tool to make sure your bike runs dead nuts on track. Check this link for the tech. We will soon carry this product and the alignment tool in the Bikernet Gulch area under Sun Valley Manufacturing.
Snake was right and so was the company snitch. We took care of Johnny and he’s on the road again.
–Renegade
