I finally found it!

[Vircon]

Its been about a 4 year search, but I finally found it. I was looking for an 83 FXRX. The black bike pic with my Mom, me, and my younger sister on it was my dads. It was an 83 FXRS, mostly stock aside from an S&S carb that my Mom could remember. The bike was sold back when I was 4 or 5, and my Dad passed back when I was 6 so finding much info on his bike was somewhat difficult. I have a few fond memories that I can still remember getting to go on the occasional coveted ride on the back when he could be coerced into it.
Anyway, I came across a listing on craigslist about 150 miles from where I live for an 83 FXRS, single owner, with 9200 original miles. I drove out to check it out and to make a story short I ended up bringing it home with me. The pic of the blue bike on the trailer is from on the way home, but it is in extremely good condition(yes my truck needs a bath).
The S&S intake is just the cover, the carb is original to the bike. The only issue it had was with the fuel gauge not working, but I have already managed to correct that. I am just waiting on some decent weather to go take it for a quick ride before working on changing all the fluids. It had maintenance done in 2010 but since then only around 300 miles were put on it. I was given all of the maintenance records, original owners manual, and haynes manual(yes I will be looking for a Harley shop manual soon).
So yea aside from the paint and carb I finally found my Dads bike, and I can carry on building the same memories with my children that he started building with me.

 

[Vircon]

And I just realized I probably should have posted this in the Show us your FXR thread instead of creating a new thread...

 

[Breeze3at]

Welcome to the forum. That is very cool that you were able to find the model bike that your Dad had. It looks like it's in really nice, original condition. Keep us posted on your progress with it.

 

[Joyflyin]

Very nice, and congratulations.

 

[Vircon]

Thank you both. I have spent pretty much every night out in the garage tinkering around with it since I got it home. The wife is feeling a bit neglected

So far the only big experience has been messing with the fuel gauge. It ended up being the sending unit bar inside the tank not making contact with the mounting plate due to some corrosion build up. I took that apart and cleaned it up and now its working properly. Naturally when I diagnosed it I did not pull the wire from the gauge to the sending unit and assumed it was reading resistance correctly from the sending unit(I was getting the resistance through the gauge instead). So I figured the sending unit was fine and blamed the gauge.

I pulled the gauge apart(that crimped bezel is fun...) and found that the needle will get stuck if it makes it to the very far right side of the gauge, along with binding on the plastic backer for the glass mount on the far left side. Im sure once powered up it probably can overcome being stuck but I decided it was a bad thing to risk and since I already had it that far apart... I drilled out the rivets for the gauge cup and face plate and replaced them with some very small screws/nuts and some locktite. I left the screws long enough so they act as stop pins for the needle and re-assembled it. The picture I included is before trimming the screws to the right length.
I tested the gauge by powering it up and shorting the I post to ground and verified I got a full reading, then added a 100 ohm resistor between I and ground and got just a bit over half a tank reading. Two 100 ohm resistors in a series put the gauge somewhere down around 1/8 of a tank, possibly a tad less.

Turns out Harley replaced that gauge with a revised model(75033-82a) before the obsoleted them, mine is 75033-82. Kinda curious if that was part of the revision they made.

 

[Jack Klarich]

Very nice, 1 of the best bikes H D ever built

 

[34thestickupkid]

Now your kids will get the opportunity to enjoy their dads bike,just like you did your dads bike!!! priceless

 

[Vircon]

Yea it will be a few years before I will feel safe putting my daughter on the back for a ride, but I am looking forward to the day she can enjoy going for a ride(plus that whole getting picked up from school by dad on a motorcycle cool factor ).

I took it out for a ride yesterday, it was a bit chilly but I did not have many issues with it starting up and running well. I put about 75 miles on it and only ran into one oddity as I was speeding up to merge with traffic on the freeway. Perhaps someone can point me in the right direction but I am assuming it is mid range/WOT jet failure, the carb clearing some gunk. I was giving it a good twist while accelerating shifted from 3rd to 4th. At seemed to pull for a moment then it almost acted like it missed the gear, it seemed to rev but I had no power. I could be off a bit on the experience because I was also trying to decide if I should be going into emergency maneuvers and pulling off the side with the semi approaching from behind.
I let off the throttle and gave it a few quick flicks. After that it came back and I was fine, carried on accelerating and shifted up to 5th and had no issues the rest of the ride.

The bike has only had around 300 miles put on it between 2010 and now so I figure the carb is gummed up and probably could use a rebuild but just wanted to check and see if there are any other concerns I should investigate while Im at it?

 

[Jack Klarich]

Pull the float bowl off first

 

[Vircon]

Pull the float bowl off first

Yea I figured that was going to have to be the first of the things to poke around at. I just wanted to make sure I should not be worrying over the clutch or trans as well. I cant imagine they would develop any real issues due to lack of use.