110 • AMERICAN IRON MAGAZINE • ISSUE #317 AIMag.com

1 Here’s our 2014Street Glide atRob’s Dyno Serviceall stripped downand ready to befully customized.

BY NOW, I HOPE YOU’VE SEEN THE PROJECTRUSHMORE Street Glides. If you haven’t, putthis mag down, hang up your leathers, andmaybe take a little hiatus from the Harley-Davidson world. Luckily for you, the hiatus only

has to be long enough for you to turn to page 64 of this issueto check them out. They’re beautiful machines in terms ofstyle, technology, and, of course, road-riding performance.

The Street Glide is such an amazing motorcycle that we atAmerican Iron Magazine think you should have one. That’s noempty statement, mind you. I mean we actually want to helpyou win a 2014 Street Glide, which is our 2015 Daytona BikeWeek raffle bike. The Street Glide is Harley’s best-sellingmodel, which is great for The Motor Company, but not nec-essarily great if you don’t want to see a bike just like yours atevery single gas and grub stop. So we’re not just going to raf-fle a stock 2014 Street Glide. That wouldn’t be our style. No,we’re helping you win a 2014 Street Glide that’s been cus-tomized to the hilt by some of the top names in the industry.Just about every facet of the bike, from paint to performanceadd-ons, will be upgraded by the time we’re done.

To take on this project, we went to our buddies Rob andDan at Rob’s Dyno in Gardner, Massachusetts. You mightrecognize their names from previous tech installs in this and

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2 Out in New Jersey, Jim Simeone of Sims Designsstarts the hydrographic process by sanding theraw saddlebag lid we got from Harley-Davidsonwith a Scotch-Brite pad.

2015 DAYTONA GIVEAWAY BIKE Part I: Laying some hydrographic patterns onto our H-D saddlebag lids

past issues. Their work speaks for it-self, and they’re the guys we trust ourown bikes with. Seeing as how wewouldn’t have bikes, or jobs for thatmatter, without you, our reader, it’sonly fitting that we show your StreetGlide that same love and care.

Your Street Glide project starts offstripped-down on Rob’s lift this month.It’s never a pretty sight to see yourbike like this, so feel free to skip the

TECH • by Tyler Greenblatt

• Blue Loctite• Wire brush• Pliers• Flat-bladed screwdriver (large)• 10mm wrench (12-point)• 1/4" socket (12-point)• 10mm socket (12-point)• Torque wrench (in-lbs.)• Torque wrench (ft-lbs.) ■

TOOLS NEEDED

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5 After heating the submersion tank to the properwater temperature, Jim and Blake lay the sectionon top of the water so there are no air bubblesunder it.

4 Jim then measures out the needed section of thewood grain pattern he got from ShawNaughtyDesignz. He cuts out a section with extra material on all sides.

3 After wiping it down with a cleaner, Jim sprayson the PPG primer coat. After waiting about 30minutes for the primer to dry, Jim sprays on thePPG tan basecoat.

love jugs

demon speed

8 Here’s how the saddlebag lid now looks with itsnew skin of woodgrain patterned paint.

7 The freshly painted saddlebag lid is then slowlysubmerged through the paint pattern so itbonds smoothly to the saddlebag lid. This isdefinitely not as easy as it looks!

6 After the film is hydrated, Jim sprays on the acti-vator, which dissolves the coating that held thepaint pattern to the film. This activator will alsobond the paint to the just-painted saddlebag lid.

112 • AMERICAN IRON MAGAZINE • ISSUE #317 AIMag.com

9 After washing and then drying the saddlebag lid,Jim sprays on the top coat of PPG clear.

10 Here’s the finished saddlebag lid, as it standsnow, but we’re not done with it yet. This isjust the first step of what we have in store forthis very special bagger’s paint job.

11 Back at Rob’s shop, Dan is positioning a set ofACCEL Stealth Super Coils over our 2014 StreetGlide’s spark plugs.

12 It only takes a couple of bolts and a fewwires to install each ACCEL Stealth SuperCoil. This setup puts a coil right on top ofeach spark plug.

SO HOW DO YOU GET A TICKETto win this year’s Harley-David-son Street Glide? Just mail yourname, address, telephone num-ber, the number of tickets youwant, and a check for the cor-rect amount ($50 per ticket) tothe Daytona Beach CommunityFoundation, PO Box 2676, Dept.AIM, Daytona Beach, FL 32115-2676. Or you can fax the founda-tion at 386/258-5104 with all ofthe above information plus yourVisa, MasterCard, or AmericanExpress number, expiration date,and signature. (If you have anyquestions, you can call the foun-dation at 386/255-0981.) Youcan also get more info or enteronline at OfficialBikeWeek.com.

The drawing will be held atnoon on Saturday, March 14, onthe Main Stage in RiverfrontPark on the corner of Beach andMain streets in Downtown Day-tona Beach. Only 4,500 ticketswill be printed, so don’t delay.As always, you don’t have to bepresent to win, only your entrydoes. Good luck! ■

HOW TO ENTER

first picture and move on to the start ofthe paint process. Starting with photo2, Jim Simeone of Sims Designs inNew Jersey is turning our Harley-Davidson speaker saddlebag lids intowoodgrain-painted works of art withhydrographics film supplied by Shaw-Naughty Designz. Hydrographics is amethod of applying printed designs to three-dimensional surfaces.This process can be used on metal,

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ACCEL PERFORMANCE PRODUCTS216/658-6413ACCEL-Ignition.com

DAYTONA BEACH COMMUNITY FOUNDATION386/258-5104, faxOfficialBikeWeek.com

HARLEY-DAVIDSON MOTOR COMPANYHarley-Davidson.com

PPG AUTOMOTIVE REFINISH440/572-2800PPGrefinish.com

ROB’S DYNO SERVICE978/895-0441RobsDyno.com

SHAWNAUGHTY DESIGNZ LLC406/459-1518ShawNaughtyDesignz.com

SIMS DESIGNS LLC973/440-8102SimsDesignsLLC.com

SOURCES

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plastic, glass, hardwoods, and variousother materials and is also commonlyknown as hydro dipping due to the factthat the parts are dipped in water. Thehydrographics process is used to deco-rate items that range from entire all-terrain vehicles and car dashboards,firearms and hunting equipment, tosmall items like X-Box controller shellsand automotive trim. Generally speak-ing, if the part can be dipped in waterand can be painted using traditionaltechniques, the hydrographic printingprocess can be applied. Here’s how itworks: the substrate part to be printedis pretreated and a base coat material(in our case, PPG paint) is applied.The hydrographic film, which isprinted with the graphic image to betransferred, is then floated on the surface of heated water. An activatorchemical is then sprayed on the film todissolve it into a liquid and activate abonding agent. The prepped andpainted part can now be lowered intothe water through the floating ink de-sign. The ink design wraps around andadheres to the part. The adhesion is aresult of the chemical components ofthe activator softening the basecoatlayer and allowing the ink to form a

bond with it. After removing the partfrom the water, a top coat is applied toprotect the design. With multipleprints, hydrographic printing canachieve full 360-degree coverage of thepart’s surface, including small crevices.PPG, which supplied the stunningpaint on last year’s giveaway bike, sentall the other necessary painting compo-nents for this extreme custom paintscheme, which we’ll be showing youmore of in future issues.

Meanwhile, back at Rob’s, the proj-ect Street Glide got hooked up with a

set of ACCEL SuperCoils, which re-place the stock coils and wires with apack that sits on top of each sparkplug. Not only does ACCEL claim better ignition performance with theSuperCoils, but they do a nice jobcleaning up the left side of a Big Twin.

Unfortunately, we can only give outone Street Glide this year. C’mon, whodo you think we are … Oprah? And,there’s only one way to get your handson this beautiful bagger, check the ac-companying sidebar for the full details.AIM