A few years ago, I had the great folks at Motorcycle Tire Center Las Vegas (
http://www.mtclv.com/ ) install Kimpex grip heaters while I kept my GPS plugged in to the OEM 12v outlet (even though it gouged the panel the speaker rested on) and ran my heated vest from the battery. Over the the last 70k miles, it was kind of nagging at me that I should clean up the aftermarket wiring and put it into a single point of failure...IOW, a fuse box that was wired independent of the OEM stuff.
Well, I've been wanting to add something for more visibility and upgrade the horns...so, I ordered a PC-8 fuze box from Eastern Beaver, Stebel horns and relay wiring from Murph, a new heated vest wiring harness from the good folks at RiderWearhouse (Aerostich), HiViz Bullet marker LED's (and the PodMod which makes them twinkle) and a 12v USB outlet from Blue Sea. Luckily, Cognosticator was available to help me spoon on a new set of Michelin PR4's which left me with about one days worth of work for the electrical stuff.
Today was the install day, so I was up at 0500. I just got back from a 6 month deployment last Friday, can't get used to "sleeping in" just yet.
I decided to let the heated grip wiring stay since it was a such a great job, but it did take the front accessory outlet. And, the blank hole on the left dash is tighter than I wanted to put in the USB. The USB and the other items got routed thru the EB PC-8 (a quality piece), while the heated grips were left undisturbed.
In the thick of it...
I dug out my Fred Harmon maintenance DVD to get the secret of the rear accessory leads to use as a switch for the Eastern Beaver box. My wife chuckled at the scene where he pulls the leads out...3h later, she's helping me and remarks: "they are EXACTLY where he said they were!". If you don't already have Fred's DVD's, I highly recommend them. There's nothing like seeing the actual procedure being performed while referencing the OEM manual.
Here are the hidden leads:
Note, the leads that are visible when you remove the seat are supposedly not accessory leads (then, what are they?
)
I took my time, drank an Andygator or two (
http://abita.com/brews/our_brews/andygator ) and ended up with this:
I used posi-taps for every connection, then used shrink tubing to seal them. I wish I had bought some cable tubing to simplify things...ahh, well that's why God made zip ties I reckon.
The Blue Sea 12v USB outlet was mounted on the right panel. I used some RTV to help seal it and used shrink tubing on the termination of the spade connectors I made.
Next up was the Stebel disc horn install...wow!, that was easy. Wish I had done that long ago. There's lots of room for two horns and Murphs harness makes it idiot proof (which I was soon to test)
Then, I installed the four Bike Vis Bullet LED's that I bought off ADVrider. I used a PodMod for one pair to make them twinkle. I have this wild idea to offset the twinkling ones about 30 degrees to catch they eye of those wily Left-turning cagers. The other two are pointed straight ahead.
Here's a view offset to the side, you can't see the twinkle in a still, but there is a hi-viz LED pointed right at the line-of-sight:
Initially, none of the accessories worked on account of me reversing the connections to the battery with no harm. Then I found that I had neglected to secure the ground on the EB fuse box. Once those two items were fixed, I turned my attention to aiming the LED marker lights. I guess I must have left them on too long 'cause the batter would not start the bike (sigh). After two hours on the battery tender, it fired right up!
I wired the GPS and USB outlet to unswitched power. I mounted the fuse box inside the right fairing, it takes two minutes to get to it if I need to wire them to switched. The USB outlet has a status LED, but it should only draw milliamps and should not draw down the battery over the course of several days between riding. I'd wanted to be able to fire up the GPS without starting the bike (no sense disturbing other campers just so I can decide on where lunch will be).
That's it for now. I'm headed to Newfoundland in a few weeks and probably will not add anything else before the trip.
