It's Not Brain Surgery

I had never pulled off the fairing before. The Batwing fairing looks solid and substantial, it is neither. I figured that the fairing was like the skull and contained the brains of the bike. I thought that maybe opening up the fairing might be something better left to, a doctor maybe, or a real mechanic. But when the oil pressure gauge light burned out I scrubbed up for surgery.

It turns out that pulling the fairing apart is easy. The windshield comes off with three bolts, then four bolts hold on the fairing. The headlight is part of the fairing and simply unplugs.

The gauge light bulb replacement was straightforward, pop out the plug from the back of the gauge, insert the bulb and pop it back in, easy.

Then I saw the broken stiffening bracket. The bracket is clearly badly designed, so I replaced both sides. This brings me to one of my main beefs with the Motor Company.

Harley Davidson has been building the Electra Glide for over forty years. You would think they would know everything there is to know about how to build an Electra Glide. Then why would you find things like this spindly, poorly designed bracket on a bike that has been in production for so long?

You can see the old style bracket and the new beefier bracket. Below you can see where the bracket installs on the inner fairing,

It's not brain surgery.

Are you listening Milwaukee.