A few weeks back at a local show, I took a moment to wander around the vendors. One of the things that has gotten worse for me over time is looking at all the cool projects for sale. This beastly has been on my list for some time. I've always wanted a AMF chain drive Davidson and lo and behold there it was! Sitting on a trailer, waiting for someone to breathe a little life back into to it.
The price was what I thought to be really reasonable, though a few people mention that I might have been able to find one for a tad less. In any case, here it sat. The seller was cool and forthright, he gave me a business card and I went back to looking around and hanging out at the club booth. By the end of the day family duties and other things clogged the mind and the XLCH was forgotten about.
Funny enough, I didn't even know it was a XL or what year it was for that matter. All I knew was that it was a chain drive AMF and that was cool for me! As weird as this would sound, it spoke to me; it called out and drew me close. close enough to present itself as a faithful ironhead machine. I never saw the hashed harness, the buckhorn bars with 5 inch risers or the straight pipes. But I saw the ironhead. I knew that no matter what people could or would say about AMF; this could be made into a loyal and reliable machine.
The following day it came to mind that I had forgotten about the AMF but I had the card from the vendor. After a few more back and forth thoughts I gave a call. Yep, it was still for sale and it was still on the trailer; yep- I wanted it and in a few more hours it would be sitting outside my house, cool!
AMF= American Machine and Foundry. Think about that, yeah- it wasn't the best time for Harley; but for those that had to build their machines out of what they got. This is it, chain drive with the potential to be re- converted back to right hand shift. I dug right in to cleaning up the years of dirt and grease. Damage from a few downs here and there and changes as those tried to make their vision real.
As the extraneous bits came off and the dirt clear my vision started to take shape. Its still no where close to what I would like, but if it did run (and It should run) its much closer to what I could work with. The 5 inch risers are gone as are the buckhorn bars for a later project. A bates saddle stills on the frame awaiting some sort of mounting system in the future. The rear rim is damage, I'll start looking for a alloy rim; I wonder how a 19 inch would do? Foot controls, well that will take time as to whether to go right or left shift. The details are coming in fast and furious. Maybe a set of XLCR pipes? we'll see what's next when the kick start pedal comes in.
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