Deadwood styling details

[Donkey Hotey]

I'm hoping there are still active Deadwood owners that can answer some questions for me and for the present and future owners.

I just bought a Deadwood Special from the original owner. He prided himself on having never used a computer in his life. Consequently, he has been somewhat isolated for the past 17 years and didn't do much in the way of changing the bike. Except for sending it to X-Man Bobby Baldwin for "all the upgrades" back in 2003 or 2004, he's done all the work to the bike since.

Now we talked quite a bit and this man kept EVERYTHING he ever took off that bike. He gave me a box that still had the factory air cleaner element, throttle body bracket and even the vinyl edge gasket that went on the chrome air cleaner cover (anybody remember those?). Bobby wrapped up and sent him back all the removed parts, including one front reflector removed to clear a Jagg oil cooler and the factory clutch slave cylinder and two wheel bearings--everything.

Here is where I start to get lost. Does anybody know the parts that were cosmetically different on the Deadwood models? I believe this is the rundown:

• Chromed rigid fork instead of black on the standard models.
• Gloss black lower spring collars and strut covers.
• Gloss black upper strut caps
• Gloss black lower rockers on the fork
• Raised drag-style handlebar
• Gloss black timing case cover
• Gloss black cylinders, without polished fin edges
• Gloss black primary cover
• Gloss black front and rear belt covers
• Gloss black battery cover
• Gloss black oil pump cover
• Silver cylinder heads and engine cases
• One-piece seat in place of two separate seats.
• Same K491 Dunlop tires but, with raised white letters

Is that it (aside from the decals and lack of stripes)?

Here's my question: what about this headlight bracket? Mine is chrome. This is supposedly a Deadwood part. I don't think he changed it. Why is the one on 1663 chrome? Mistake on the assembly line? Not available on that build date?


Any other parts? Black handlebar clamps would have made a lot of sense stylistically. So would black mirrors. Am I imagining those parts or did I happen to see an owner's custom additions to the base Deadwood theme?

For comparison:

[wytfut]

Greg....
Bobby offered a head light lowering bracket for the X's... so that is what I suspect is why the black DWS one was removed.
His bracket would lower the headlight 1".....
if you knew what you were looking at, it was noticable....  Retro and sleek...

Nice looking DWS

Sidenote:
we ordered our LED headlites... pretty excited....

And I'll be contacting about the registry...   do I have your email address? wyfut@windstream.net

Bruce Whitefoot
NebraXi

[rt66john]

Didn't the DWS come with raised white letter tires too?

[wytfut]

Oh yes... you are correct John....

Greg.....
sent an email to Dan and got this reply... give it a shot... still can't get in, let me know....



"Interesting as the website registry says what to do if you cannot log in.

Was probably registered to someone else so of course the new owner will not have the correct login info, so needs to contact us…as stated on the website.

Have him contact us with the last four of the VIN number.

It says right on the website what to do if they cannot log in.

http://www.excelsior-henderson.com/pages/registry/update.php

 

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If you do not know your Login Information, please click REQUEST REGISTRY LOGIN (send email to bigx@excelsiorhenderson.com) and send us the last four digits of your VIN number and we will send you an email with the updated Password."

 

Wytfut

[Donkey Hotey]

Bruce,

I had also forgotten that Bobby made those lowering brackets for the headlights. I don't think that's the case here though. I looked more closely at it this morning and this is a factory bracket.

In fact, every Deadwood picture I can find online, where the bracket is visible, they're all chrome. I haven't seen a black one yet.







I'm not trying to argue but, if I can buy the correct bracket and make it right, I'd like to do that. The fork is going to have to be torn down and sent out for plating anyway so all of these parts are going to be off at one point.

As always, thanks for your expertise,

[Donkey Hotey]

Didn't the DWS come with raised white letter tires too?

Good catch! Dunlop K491 tires with raised white letters. Man, I ran those things on my Goldwing 30 years ago. Can't believe they're still in production.

[wytfut]

I'm going to contact Mike Seastrom in Texas. Who I sold our Deadwood to.
I'm pretty sure our head lite bracket was black.
I'll check in later..

[wytfut]

Well Greg...
I did some calling around....
the black head lite brackets do not appear to be DWS specific...
they are on and off of a lot of 2000 X's..... like maybe they ran out of stock of one or the other, or possible cut costs...
Interesting note:...   The Jennie, had its own, in oyster, and so were the License plate/turn signal brackets...
this surprised me as I've had 2 different Jennies in my shop, and I never noticed....

So knock of the black head lite bracket off the DWS parts specific....
we all learned a little something today... COOL!!

[Donkey Hotey]

Interesting note:...   The Jennie, had its own, in oyster, and so were the License plate/turn signal brackets...
this surprised me as I've had 2 different Jennies in my shop, and I never noticed....

I can confirm this for the rear license plate bracket on my Jennie: it is indeed Oyster. You got me curious enough to get out of bed with a flashlight at 2:30 am to go check the headlight bracket. Nope, my Jennie has a chrome headlight bracket. How funny.

It's also interesting because that license plate bracket is something else I would have blacked out if I had personally been designing the Deadwood and I got the idea from the Jennie. I happen to have a chrome replacement for 1525 (red / oyster) because the original chrome was incomplete (a shadow of bare nickel on the top surface). I might paint that gloss black and stick it on the DWS just because (keeping the original of course).

I even went to the trouble of painting the license plate frame. I found wrinkle black but not gloss. That was out of step with the rest of the finishes so I sanded it, painted it black with auto body paint, then two wet coats of clear. It's very subtle but it's "right" to my eye.


Interesting discussion. Thanks for doing that research. We learned something new.

[rt66john]

The Jennie, had its own, in oyster, and so were the License plate/turn signal brackets...
this surprised me as I've had 2 different Jennies in my shop, and I never noticed....

The license plate / turn signal bracket on my Jennie is indeed painted body color.  I'm pretty sure the headlight bracket is chrome, but I'll have to check when I get home.

[Berlin Bob]

Hey  guys   check out Terry's  site  ...ehparts.com  ... he has some black and chrome  head lite brackets ....and some  deadwood  stuff   . also a lot  of parts

[wytfut]

A lot of Terrys parts are becoming short in stock...
But he does have them...
the correct address Bob is...
ehparts.net

Terry would love to hear from any of us....
Bruce

[Donkey Hotey]

Yup, his inventory is where my question came from. I'm about to place an order with him and more with Atlantic.

[Jumper]

Dunlops... They seem to last longer!
Jumper

[Donkey Hotey]

Out getting lunch today, and cruising through the parts manual looking for other part differences and a few tidbits turned up regarding this discussion.

First was the painted license plate mounts. It turns out they came in Chrome, black, blue and oyster. The Deadwood could have gotten either chrome or black.

Another interesting thing was the insert decal on the air cleaner. There is a different part number for the HCXS. What I don't know is what is allegedly different. The parts list doesn't differentiate 1999 from 2000 so maybe that's a mistake in the parts listing and all the 2000s got the later part number. Anybody know for sure?

Finally: it's interesting that the parts book captured the HCXS (Deadwood Special Edition) but, the Touring Limited Editions (HCXT) got no mention for their unique parts. The solid Oyster paint isn't mentioned on any of the sheetmetal listings.

The first Jennie in the registry is 1956 and the first Deadwood was 1565: 391 bikes between them. How many months of production was that? You have to also wonder what production line challenges that presented with fitting some portion of those accessories and still packing it all in the same crates.