Ironhead Fork Gaiters

[Ferrous Head]

I suspect the material the original HD boots were made from actually had a fairly high content of natural rubber.
I also suspect that what you can buy now is a lot more "plastic" than rubber.

Both will deteriorate with age but some plastics are very short lived in comparison to natural rubber. Especially when exposed to sunlight.

So, spare a thought for those poor unfortunates younger than us for whom their "aspirational" bike is some Japanese 4 cylinder rocketship of the 70/80's.

Between the krap khrome, plastic bits and model/parts changes every 15 days .......

[tiderider]

Pure trash, I would not recommend buying these gaiters. I can't believe they get away with selling them.
json syntax checker

[tiderider]

Just returned from Pensacola HD, they don't have any in stock, parts guy checked computer and none in Florida, says they are "pending obsolete" but shows 7 shops in the US that have at least one in stock. He's going to find me a pair from the list of shops. If you want to get these from HD you better act fast as it looks like they are going away.

So not a complete wasted trip, they at least had a 69XLCH for me to enjoy.

[brucstoudt]

i was surprised they still carried them when i bought mine.this year it's 68 years for that -54 p/n.originally for K model.

[tiderider]

Originally Posted by brucstoudt

i was surprised they still carried them when i bought mine.this year it's 68 years for that -54 p/n.originally for K model.

I bought a pair of them 8 or 9 years ago from the same HD dealer, at that time they had them in stock. I think they were around $48 each, now the pair (with tax) is costing me $144. smh

[72 Ironhead XLH]

I have a new VT set ,pm if interested

[tiderider]

Originally Posted by 72 Ironhead XLH

I have a new VT set ,pm if interested

Thanks for the offer but this last set of VT gaiters lasted about 5 months. I'm going to wait for the HD set to arrive.

[tiderider]

Time to break out the tools and hopefully these will last more than 4 months.

[rejeanprimeau]

Originally Posted by tiderider

Just returned from Pensacola HD, they don't have any in stock, parts guy checked computer and none in Florida, says they are "pending obsolete" but shows 7 shops in the US that have at least one in stock. He's going to find me a pair from the list of shops. If you want to get these from HD you better act fast as it looks like they are going away.

So not a complete wasted trip, they at least had a 69XLCH for me to enjoy.

Keep that parts guy, they are also becoming obsolete. The new parts guy; if something is not in the accessories catalog they tell you nope don't have it.

[tiderider]

I agree, these guys usually do the best they can. It's not their fault if the part isn't available, but they will order aftermarket parts if that is what I want.

Now these boots were extremely hard to install the upper ends, so hard I ended up pulling of the fork legs and installing the boots then sliding the forks back up through the boots. That actually made installing them much easier.