1976 With Reversed Foot Controls

[IronMick]

VIN # 3A47896H6 has reversed foot controls. I thought that rev controls ended with 1974. Anyone have any more info about this?

[Fisherman]

What do you mean by reversed controls? Do you mean upshift push down instead lift?

[Moved On]

He means shift on the right, brake on the left. Of course Flathead would say that these are proper controls and the rest of are running reversed controls.

Mick, I'm not sure about the years, but I thought that the factory was a few years behind on changing the cases. They moved the shifter peg over to the left side but did so by using some funky linkages. The shifter arm still entered the case on the right. Could it be that you are looking at one of these interim years and one of the previous owners got rid of the linkage and moved the shifter back to the "right" side?

Gazza

[HrdlyDangrs]

Mick, the 75-76 Sportster had the interim brake and shifter set-up before going to the National standard left small shifter off the primary cover and right brake set-up.

The 75-76 had a long aluminum left side shifter arm that looked similiar to the 74 and earlier Sporties long steel brake arm. It also had a small short aluminum brake assembly on the right side that actuated the brake via a cable to the old style rear drum brake.

Now the 75-76 's aluminum shifter used the same hole thru the bottom of the frame, so it may appear that its a brake but its actually the shifter.

Here's a shot of the 75-76 Gear Shifter Assy and Brake Assy. Most these parts are still available thru J&P Cycle or can be found at some of the older HD Shops (Independents) and E'bay.

The other possibility is that the owner of the bike you mentioned switched back to the early 74 set-up themselves (unlikely, because he would have had to change the shifter pawl, Part #9 shown in the shifter Diagram below, inside the transmission) or the bike in question is actually a late74/early 75 Model and one of the last bikes with the left brake/right shifter set-up coming off the assembly line.

[FORCE50]

Think I know the bike you're talking about, eh. Quite often people would move the shifter back to the right side, because the amount of linkage from the shifter arm to the transmission wouldn't give you a positive gear change. More like banging it into gear. Also the brake, which used to use a steel rod, in 75 went to a cable. This stretches and has to be adjusted regularly. I know this. Of course, I could have yelled out my back door with the same info, instead of typing it out for all to read. LOL

Steve.

[Fisherman]

Thanks for the info. Never heard it refered to that way. Always called it right side shift.

[bamf_shadow]

I own a 76 XLCH and my brake is a rod set up on the left foot, shifter on the right. I had all the linkage at one point, but it proved to work like crap. It took a while to learn to shift and brake backwards, but now I dont know if I could do it the right way!!!