Photo Above: XLR Struts


When the Harley-Davidson race department made all these XLCH (original steel) parts from aluminum for the XLR race bikes, their goal was to lighten this thing up - make it go faster, and win some races !  I had steel fender struts on it for years - and my fender was fine.  I put these aluminum struts on - and this thing vibrates like a tuning fork back there - cracking paint and buzzing like a true Milwaukee vibrator !  No rigidity....
No wonder most I see are cracked, missing the tacked on spacers - and if you are fortunate enough to find the aluminum fender (which my buddy Jeff has, but won't sell it to me(smiley face here)) they are all cracked too.  Pretty to look at - not all that practical.  But I still like 'em ! 

4 comments:

drsprocket said...

My friend picked up an aluminum fender at our local swap meet and we knew nothing about them. We just thought it was cool. he might sell it but he's high on everything. Just sayin'.

Unknown said...

Funny thing about the Motor Co., when parts failed due to stress, leverage or what ever. The engineers just beefed things up
to the point of, to tuff to fail. Just my humble opinion.
BC

Noot said...

How much? I'm interested. Maybe money and a trade??

drsprocket said...

Noot, E-mail me at drsprocket@att.net. Rich p.s. I'll see him at a m/c swap meet out here Sunday and will ask him pricing. He had the Iron Dinosaur J model that used to race at Davenport (always 2nd to the great Jim Walls Indian)and a two or three time Cannonballer.