Wrench Reports - Snarl's Heavy Breather

Openin' her up, lettin' her breath ...

Got one of Snarl's Heavy Breather air cleaners, and bolted her on today. This thing is suave. Cast aluminum, with a highly polished venturi for pulling air in. The biggest air filter you've ever seen to minimize restriction. An internal sump to take the blow-by oil and gasses from the heads, and plenty of options for dealing with that stuff.

Pull one plug and route it back into the venturi, or pull one of two plugs on the back, and run a hose down to the ground. I opted for the latter.

That choice meant a trip to Ace Hardware. I needed a few feet of oil line, some standard plumbing fittings, and three cap head screws. I also needed a new gasket from the local dealer. Wrapped a little teflon tape around the L fitting, screwed it into the bottom of the sump, attached the oil hose, and ran it down between the tranny and the frame, with nylon ties to hold it in place.

Mounted the breather to the heads loosely, put a drop of Loctite on each of the three screws which hold the HB onto the throttle body, lined the venturi up, and cranked everything down. Perfect fit! I capped her off with an eight inch round, black air filter cover I scored off eBay, and a suave chromed billet insert.

This finished my stage one upgrade. I had strapped on a pair of Khrome Werks HP+ slip-ons, Harley of Washington had installed the Stage-One flash to set a base map and to increase the rev limiter, and I installed a PCIII USB with the appropriate map.

Yee haw! Finally got m' bagger breathing and she just opened up! The throttle's more responsive, she pulls harder, the pipes sound better, my dick gets harder, my acne cleaned up, young girls swoon when they see us, other men step out of my way, and my boss gave me a raise.

I get her dyno-tuned and there'll be no livin' with me!

Wrench Report: Removable Tour Pak

Mounting a Detachable Tour Pak Rack to a Late Model FLHTCI Tour Pak

This is my attempt at documenting lessons learned from mounting a detachable Tour Pak Rack on my 2004 Electra Glide Classic. I imagine there're similar issues (and more) with Ultra Barges, and some of this should apply to EG Standards and Road Glides, but I converted an FLHTCI, and so that's my focus.

Bear in mind that HD P&A catalog and other documentation is slanted towards those mounting a newly purchased Tour Pak on Road Glides and Electra Glide Standards - bikes without Tour Paks.

So, the catalog and information sheets don't tell you all the parts you'll need, instruction sheets say they're for other kits, or for other bikes - then there're typos, wrong part numbers, and generally misleading info. [more on that...]

Hey, it's an adventure! Don't want to mess with it? Pay the dealer!

Parts I used:

Touring Detachable Tour-Pak Rack (P/N 53276-04)
Detachable Lock (optional) (P/N 46063-98)
Rear Docking Point Kit (P/N 53127-96C)
Front Docking Point Kit (P/N 53746-97B
Antenna Relocation Kit (P/N 76326-00)
HD PHD Tab Terminal (3ea) (P/N 20-166A )
HD PHD Recpt Contact (3ea) (P/N 20-166)
HD PHD Tab Housing, 3-Posit (P/N 73103-96BK )
HD PHD (P/N 73153-96BK) Recpt Housing 3-Posit)
Conduit 10FT (P/N 70554-69)
Layback License Plate Mounting Kit for Touring Models (P/N 53385-00)

There's no single install guide for the entire process. So, if you install each component separately, you'll find yourself frequently undoing something you just did to do the next step. Install the rear docking point first, but read ahead because the front docking point replaces one of the front bolts, and the new antenna mount bolts inside the left rear docking point.


It helped me to understand how the antenna relocation kit works. When installed, the antenna lead from the radio will be relocated to the bottom of a new antenna mount on the rear docking point. When the Tour Pak is off, the antenna screws into this mount. A jumper cable is permently wired from the Tour Pak mount and routed out a grommet in the front of the Tour Pak.

When you mount the Tour Pak, you take the antenna off the rear mount, screw the jumper cable into an adaptor on the rear mount, and screw the antenna into the Tour Pak mount.

At that point, the rear mount is basically a connector extending the antenna cable from the radio to the tour pak. Both mounts are included in the kit, though the one for the Tour Pak is unnecessary in this scenario. Don't loose the adaptor!

You'll need a license plate mounting kit. The original installation uses the license plate holder as a rear support to the Tour Pak. It's not usable in the final install unless you trim hell out of it. I used HD's Layback License Plate Mounting Kit for Touring Models p/n 53385-00 which barely fits. A less spendy alternative might be to find the stock unit on the FLHT.
Nothing tells you that you have to remove the upper chromed rail from the bike (the one the license plate holder holds up). But you do. Of course you do. (You probably already figured that out.)

Mounting the rack to the Tour Pak is straight forward. There appears to be a few options for shifting the Tour Pak fore and aft a few inches, but the available holes only provide for status quo or forward. Mr drill might provide a few more options. But think about what shifting that much weight aft might do to your balance. As the MofoMoCo might say "serious death or injury, yada, yada, yada ...

I found mounting it to be tough at first. The front mounts and rear mounts did not align properly. I double checked all the instructions to make sure I used appropriate spacers, etc. I'm probably going live with it and see if it loosens up in time. Else I might use a thinner spacer on the front docking points, or flex the rear docking points outward.

In order to make this slick, you'll need to provide a way to unplug power leads to the Tour Pak. Then, you'll be able to unscrew the antenna from the Tour Pak, disconnect the antenna lead from the rear mount, unplug the power, pull the Tour Pak off, and screw the antenna into the rear mount.

As it is, there's a plug just inside the Tour Pak you'll need to unplug, then pull the grommet out of the front of the Tour Pak and pull the cables out. A better option is to cut the power cables under the left side of the seat, and install an interlocking connector at a point you can access w/o removing the seat. The parts labeled "HD PHD" in the parts list were available from the dealer. I cut the existing conduit off in order to separate the power leads and the antenna cable. I ran the three power leads back thru the thinner conduit listed in the parts list.


This whole concept opens up lots of options. With two additional mounting points, you can clip on a removable backrest, or backrest/luggage rack combo for the SO. Mount a solo seat for extra poseur points! Or, mount the Tour Pak in just a minute or three.

Riding w/o the Tour Pak is noticeably different. The lower center of gravity makes for considerably less squirrelly slow speed riding, stopping is easier, and it generally makes blasting around corners more fun.

CW


ADDENDUM

Typos, wrong p/ns and other generally misleading info:

The instructions enclosed with Touring Detachable Tour-Pak Rack (p/n) 53276-04 stated they are for Kit Number 53260-02 (Detachable Solo Tour-Pak Rack) , although the enclosed service parts list was for 53276-04.

The catalog calls for "…appropriate Docking Hardware Kit P/N 53746-97B and P/N 53127-96C." The Tour Pak Rack instruction sheet calls for: "Rear Docking Point Kit (P/N 53127-97C), and Front Docking Point Kit (P/N 53746-97B)." (Note difference in rear docking point P/N). The catalog is correct.


The catalog says "FLTR models require Antenna Relocation Kit P/N 76326-00." The enclosed instruction sheet says "This kit is designed for relocating a fender mounted antenna to a detachable Tour Pak on 1998 and later Road Glide Models." But it works just fine on FLHT models.

Parts needed for Detachable Backrest:

Detachable Short Passenger Sissy Bar Upright 52935-04
Low-Profile Backrest Pad P/N 52697-04
Front Docking Kit P/N 53104-97A
Detachable Docking Hardware Kit P/N 53450-97C.