Revell/Monogram XL 1200C Sportster kit# 85-7310

[Nolan]

Back in 1984 after an unfortunate meeting on my ’73 Shovelhead with a drunk driver, I bought a new Harley 883 Sportster to ride while I was rebuilding the Shovelhead.  Fun bike, but a little slow.  Sooo, 1200 kit, cams, pipe, carb, and then it was a lot more fun!

Stock as a rock straight from San Mateo Harley.

Not so stock anymore.  Don't remember why I'm still running the ham can air cleaner in this photo.  I put an S&S carb and air cleaner on it to go with the 1200 kit. (After looking at the measley 6 or 7 baffles on the Supertrapp muffler, I hadn't installed the 1200 kit yet, just the pipe.  After the 1200 kit, it took 11 or 12 baffles to tune the pipe.)

I wanted to build a model of it, but all the kits I could find were of the 5 speed, belt drive 1200 Sportster.  So I snagged the cheapest one I could find on Fleabay.

The Revell/Monogram XL 1200C Sportster kit# 85-7310 is rather disappointing, nothing is straight or level and lacks a lot of detail, the frame neck is way oversized and the kit fork stem fits like a hot dog in a hallway, so I shimmed it with Evergreen tubing.

Sooo, 3D printer go!  I printed the older style curved fender struts, printed a frame jig to get the frame at least somewhat straight. 

Lugs on the rear fender locate it to the fender struts.

So, I laid a stripe of tape down the fender centerline, got the fender aligned with the frame and snipped off most of the right hand side fender strut.  Then I located the new curved fender strut onto the stump of the old strut and glued it into place, along with a generous dollop of sprue goo.  After it was firmly fixed in place I drilled and pinned the strut and fender with some Evergreen rod.

Then tried to repeat the process on the left side, but had to do some more frame alignment work to get both sides aligned using a couple of drill bits through the locating pin holes.  You can see some of the warp in the swing arm.  I will eventually build a better swing arm and rear brake.

The curved fender struts mount the shocks in a different location so I shortened the shocks by cutting a section out of the middle and re-enforcing them with some plastic rod.

Next up was the Supertrapp pipe.  I modeled one and did a quick print on my filament printer to check the fit.  It was close, so I made a few changes and printed one on the resin printer.

This kit has spoked wheels and my bike had mag wheels, so I modeled mags, front and back, and a chain drive to replace the belt and pulleys of the kit, and better handlebars and speedo.

Of course then I found a Revell XLH 883 kit on Fleabay for $30, that was missing the tires, so I snagged it in case it’s mag wheels were better than mine and it has the correct seat.  It’s a toss-up on the mag wheels, but the front forks on both kits are so lame, I had to print new forks, triple clamps, and brakes to go with the mags, handlebars and speedo.

At this point I got bored with this kit and started a couple of car kits, but that's another story.  I'll post back on this thread when I get motivated to work on this pile again.

Nolan

Edited November 5 by Nolan
Memory jogged