Blackout Bagger
This is how the 2015 Road Glide looked when we lashed her to the bike lift.
And this is the chrome-clad moto we are about to tear down for blackout.
We started by draining the bike of all its fluids and removing the battery.
The big chrome outer primary was then removed.
We removed the stock exhaust. It will be replaced with a Vance & Hines system when we put the bike back together.
The chrome rear brake/license plate bracket was removed and thrown in the powdercoat pile.
The rear brake pedal, floorboards, and other chrome bits were also removed.
The OEM H-D hydraulic clutch cover was removed as well.
The handlebars will be swapped for some Spooky Fast mini-apes, but the dash and gas cap were removed for further blacking out.
To gain access to the rocker boxes and other chrome upper engine parts, the tank was pulled from the bike.
At this time the outer faring was taken off so we could gain access to the fork tubes and fairing brackets.
The rocker boxes and air cleaner were then pulled from the H-D 103 Twin Cam motor.
All of the chrome parts were now completely removed from the engine.
The stock wheels will be used again—after they are blacked out, of course.
Here are just some of the parts and pieces going to the powdercoater. We took more than 150 parts in all!
And here is the bike after we stripped all of the chrome parts off of it in three hours. Watch next month as we put it all back together with a ton of darkness and heaps of cool parts!
So if you are one of the editors of Hot Bike magazine, what’s the first thing you do with the perfectly awesome 2015 Road Glide you just cut a fat check for?
The answer is: You drag it from the sales floor of Huntington Beach Harley-Davidson directly over to the service department and remove every single thing off of it that was chrome. Why, you ask? To send it off to the folks at Specialized Powdercoating for a coat of texture black darkness. We all know chrome don’t get you home.
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