08 Installing Floorboards on my 05 883 Harley Davidson Sportster, Effie.

08 Installing Floorboards on my 05 883 Harley Davidson Sportster, Effie.

Finally a warm day it’s a good day for a ride, but I wanted to put one of the new accessories on that I had bought over the winter. I had decided to try floorboards last year. I spend a lot of time on my bike and have found that it affects the way I walk. The story behind this is the bike is air cooled, on hot days the back cylinder gets really hot because my legs were cutting off the air going to it. So I need to bow my legs out to allow air to get between my legs and the engine. This puts my ankle at an unusual angle. During the summer I wear my boots all the time. I found that the outside edge of my soles of my boots were worn much more than the inside. I was not walking flat on my feet anymore, but I was walking on the outsides of my feet. I thought that replacing the pegs on the bike with floorboards, it would train my ankles to go back straight again. The floorboards are a little further out from the bike frame than the pegs. Today it looks like a good day to install the floorboards. Can’t take too long, right?

The normal procedure to change riders foot pegs is to remove the C ring from the pin that hold the peg on, slide out the peg, catching the spring as the peg come out. To install new ones, put the spring in the slot, tap the peg in until the holes are aligned and then put the pin back in, then install a new C ring to hold the pin in place. If you take 10 minutes a side you are really slow. I didn’t want to spend the whole day working on the bike, so mounting the floorboards looked like the idea project.

The floorboards I had bought off of ebay for $45.15 delivered. I bid on a couple sets but finally just paid the BUY IT NOW price when I kept loosing the auctions. I bought my set from the vendor 2orangeharleys. The floorboards are approximately 4.5 inches x 8 inches. They are supposed to fit the 1991-2008 sportys. The floorboards are good quality, they are heavy and solid feeling. There was a right and a left. The floorboards had 2 sets of holes for mounting, one set if they were getting mounted as passenger floorboards another if mounted as rider floorboards.

Removing the old pegs was pretty easy. I didn’t think to get new C rings so I took them off with care. The kit came with all the hardware you need to install them. There is the bolt and nut, 2 spacers and 2 washers to mount the floorboard on to the male peg part. This can be done before you remove the old pegs. The male peg is the part that mounts on the bike using the pin and C ring. I did the right side first and was very pleased. The left side lead to more of an ordeal, like most of the simple projects I think I will be able to do real fast. The left side floorboard went on fine. But when I sat on the bike and tried to bring up the kick stand I realized that I could no longer reach the kickstand. The shifter peg was going to have to move too. I could not get my foot under it. I debated about just taking that floorboard off so I could go ride, but decided to go ahead and fix the issues. I had been wanting an extension on the kickstand since I bought the bike. There were many times that I could barely reach it.

I grabbed the wheel dock and put the bike in it. The wheel dock would hold the bike up on its own, without needing the kickstand. It is nice to use when changing the oil too as it will hold the bike up straight. I needed to see how an extension could be put on the kickstand. And the kickstand would need to be disengaged to see if there was room for the extension when the kickstand was up. With the kickstand up there was room for an extension, so I had to find something to make it out of. I found a little wall hanger bracket that had been sitting on top of the tool box for about 4 years. Using this bracket would not only provide the material I needed, but it would once and for all get it the bracket out of my way. The bracket already had a hole where I wanted one. I just needed to drill a hole in the kickstand. I placed a board under and it and drilled away, position was not critical, so I just eyeballed its location.

I decided to cut the bracket just after the 90 degree bend, the lip that was left would be easy to grab with my boot. I had 2 choices, one was cleaning off the workbench to unbury the vise, after clamping the bracket in the vise I could use a hacksaw to cut the metal bracket to size. The other choice was to move the grinder and use it to grind a groove through the metal so it could be bent and broken apart. I chose the latter one and then used grinder to also smooth the edges. A dry fitting to get the angle right and make sure the length wasn’t too long. It took much longer to find this piece of metal to use than it did to modify and install it. I used blue loctite and double nuts on the screw to try and stop it from moving. I have some adhesive samples I was given that I want to use on this. The adhesive was used to build hotels, at some point I am going to take the extension off and put some of this adhesive between it and the kickstand, then add the hardware again, that will remove any chance of it twisting in position. The end of the extension is close to the brake line and what looks like an oil line when the kickstand is in the up position. I don’t want that extension to rub against either of those lines. After installing the extension I tried it out. Even if the floorboards are removed the kickstand extension will stay. I should have done this 3 years ago.

The next issue was moving the shifter. The shifter does not clear the front of the floorboard by much. I wish the floorboards were shorter. I took the bolt holding the shifter in position loose and rotated the shifter one tooth in the correct direction. The trick to this is to mark your starting points on both parts and totally remove the bolt so the shifter arm can be removed from the shaft. My shifter peg had to be realigned also since I changed the position of the arm. I only moved it one tooth because it was already getting pretty high to have to down shift. I need and extension on the peg to get it farther in front of the floorboard or a just add a heel / toe shifter. It is still hard to get under the peg to shift up. Moving it up another tooth would mean I would have to step down on the peg.

I decided it was now time to go for a ride, so I packed away all the tools I had drug out and cleaned up the area. Total time invested in this project was just over 2 hours. I decided I would just head out to Cleveland MO, for possible points in my HOG Chapters yearly challenge… this year it is the Presidential Race. That will be in the next blog.

Later in the day I was talking to a gold wing rider and he said he could not touch the kickstand on his bike, unless he folded the floorboards up. Mine fold up, but they want to come right back down. I could see after a few days of traveling on the bike my shin would be hurting from being bumped by the floorboard.

4 March 08 UPDATE
I think I have a solution to the short shifter. We had HOG meeting tonight and I stopped to talk with Hollywood the parts guru, he sold me a multifit Sifter Lever for a Dyna and Softail. They are longer and he swears it will fit. It was pricy, but pretty. Part number 34539-00 they did not have any cheaper ones in stock. The package says it fits a 91 and later dyna and a 90 and later softail FX models. Hollywood had a sportster for years and modified about everything on it so he should know if it will fit. I took a picture of it in the package laying next to the stock shifter. Its after 9:30PM and below freezing outside, so I ain't playing with it tonight.

9 March 08 UPDATE
So much for the Dyna shift lever. Won't work the splines are a different size, so it will not fit on the shaft. The Dyna has more smaller teeth than the sporty.

16 March 08 UPDATE
When I asked some questions on the XL-list about modifying a shift lever, one of the members responded with am offer of a longer shift arm he had in his garage. He was confident it would fit and indeed it did, moving the shift pedal to a much better location when working with the floorboards. I have used the floorboards for about 400 miles and really like them. They are going to stay on.



Here is a list of the other blogs I have written about installing items on Effie:

08 Trunk installation on my 2005 883 Harley Davidson Sportster, Effie
08 Installing Police Saddlebags on my 05 883 Harley Sportster, Effie

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