Many of you have asked me to keep you up-to-date on my project. This is the beginning of that effort. The goal is to build a diesel powered motorcycle and ride it in the Iron Butt Rally. Here is a picture of the bike on the day I picked it up.

It's a '92 Harley FLHS. It was in beautiful condition, and has only 11,xxx miles. Several have expressed dismay that it has to be disassembled for this project. In the week after taking delivery, I rode the bike only enough to determine that it's in good condition. I wasn't able to find anything wrong with it. Then I started taking it apart. Within a week I had the saddlebags, seat, tank, windscreen, engine and primary drive removed.

I found an engine on-line at www.dieselenginemotors.com It's a Kubota D1105T, a 1.2 liter turbocharged diesel that produces 31.5 horsepower.

Preliminary calculations show the stock gear ratio produces 21 mph per 1000 engine RPM. The Kubota is rated at 3000, so it will have to be geared about 25% taller.

I'm looking into belt conversions for the primary since the engine won't bolt up to the standard HD primary cover.

Engine size doesn't seem to be a problem, but I haven't tried to slide it into the frame yet. Nearly all of the black items in the engine picture need to be removed, which means replacements will have to be installed later.

The radiator will be replaced, probably with one from a Kawasaki Ninja 500. Does size matter for this? I hope not. Both the Ninja 500 and the Kubota diesel produce about 30 HP. Both burn approximately the same amount of fuel (if anything, the diesel should burn less fuel.) Therefore there should be about the same amount of waste heat produced and the 500 radiator should be sufficient for the task.