by hennesse » Fri Jun 29, 2018 7:01 pm
Thanks wz.
My sheetmetal guy called to say my fender was ready, and I realized I had forgotten about the bracket, which was bent. I figured I'd let him straighten it - it takes him about one minute to do what it takes me one hour to do. Then UH-OH, which side goes where??? After I got to his place and was in the same room as the fenders, it was pretty obvious...
My 1954 rear fender had been cut off, and I couldn't find a good used replacement. Scott L. suggested using the V-Twin repro, which would need a little work to make usable. Someone on eBay was selling them for like $118 instead of the normal $250, so I grabbed one.
It took MORE than a LITTLE work. I'll take pictures and write up a technical article. The V-Twin fender is roughly a 1956-later fender, but it can be converted to a 1952-1955 style. The outer skin of the V-Twin fender does not have any holes at the back - so holes can be drilled for either the 1952-1955 or 1956-later taillight and license plate bracket. The inner skin has a large cutout shaped like the 1956-later taillight.
To make it into a 1952-1955, you'll have to fabricate and weld in a plate to fill-in the hole in the inner skin. Once that is done, we find that the inner skin has been redesigned (probably by Harley) to accommodate the different taillight - the inner skin has stiffening ridges, and the ridges are in different places. One of the 1954 taillight mounting holes ends up dead center of one of the ridges, so that ridge had to be smashed flat.
Either the V-twin taillight bracket has oversized (7/32") mounting holes, or Harley used rivets that they don't offer as spare parts. The 8515 fender rivets (3/16) are too small in diameter. They are also too short - they were designed to rivet the outer skin to the inner skin. But NOT the license bracket, outer skin and inner skin. Good luck finding 7/32 truss-head rivets of any length. So this was a custom riveting job requiring custom rivets.
The stock front bracket doesn't quite fit the V-twin fender - the curve on the V-twin is slightly different. So some "field fitting" of the fender will have to be done. This slight difference in curve also tells us that trying to repair a cut-off fender by grafting on part of a V-twin is probably doomed to failure - the slight differences in the curves and position of the side crimps would probably result in a Frankenstein-looking fender where nothing quite matches. Or a Johnny Cash "One Piece At A Time".
Oh yeah, the commonly available replacement for the 59798-52 rubber buffer is a piece of open-cell foam "rubber". This could be a problem as the open-cell foam absorbs water like a sponge. Once it gets wet, it will stay wet for a long time. A better replacement would either be a piece of closed-cell foam (doesn't absorb water) or a piece of actual-rubber rubber. I found a piece of open-cell foam which will probably do the trick.
There was some discussion years ago about what the original was like. Does anyone have an original they could describe? Or remember what an original looked like?
All-in-all, you CAN make a V-Twin rear fender into a 1952-1955 rear fender. If you're good with sheet metal, it will take a lot of Work. If you're not, it'll take a lot of Dollars. But it certainly is NOT a "bolt-on".
Watch for a Technical Article in the near future...