Tank - redo

Got tired of the bare metal & rusting patina, so I painted it black & added a white stripe.

Before & After II

Definitely an improvement.....

A movie about IDIOT lights

Well the idiot light dash works, but not the way I expected. The green light in the middle doesn't work because now the neutral light in the LCD does! (see it there on the right). I think its because the extra globe (9 volt) is now creating enough current draw to light the led in the lcd gauges. The indicator lights work as expected! As they say two out of three aint bad!

Idiot light dash II

All soldered up and ready to install.

Ready to solder and bolt in....

All the little bits you need just to make the idiot light dash. 3 volt & 9 volt minilamps, bezel housings, sheet metal & silicon.....

Idiot Lights

Went to Jaycar and bought 3 x bezels (red & green) and then siliconed in 3 volt & 9 volt minibulbs to use as idiot lights (neutal & turn signals). Red lenses need to be orange though!

6 volts to 12 volts trouble-shooting 10000000000

Power output via DC to DC converter is 10 volts....Lower photo shows 4.7k potentiometer connected which is supposed to increase the output voltage.Then I got this email from the makers of the DC to DC converter:

Dear Mr,The M029 makes an input voltage nearly twice as high as the output voltage, the output voltage depends on the load connected (see diagram in the description).
The potentiometer can not increase the voltage, the potentiometer is used to lower the output voltage. The potentiometer must remain connected permanently.

Apparently this is not the case! The below text is from the instructions:


The potentiometer of 4,7 k linear should only be connected, if the output voltage may not pass over a determined rating. In that case, you should connect a voltmeter at the output of the module and regulate the potentiometer till the desired output voltage is indicated.



Any ideas anyone?

6 volt to 12 volt trouble-shooting

Problem: the indicator & neutral idiot lights do not work in the LCD gauge unit. The high beam idiot light does (WTF)....If you recall the XL500S has a 6 volt ignition system and the LCD gauge unit is 12 volt. So using the above converter, we can feed 12 volts into the gauges only, without effecting
anything else! I have lost most of my electrical connectors, wire, solder, globes and multimeter when I moved again last year  Damn it! I borrowed a multimeter and took some voltage readings with some interesting results. The battery is putting out 6 volts at the terminals and the reading at the guage power wire is only 10 volts. At the indicator idiot lights I got readings of 2.9 volts (right) and 2.6 volts (left) and at the neutral idiot light reads 9.1 volts. I don't have a reading for the high beam idiot light as the engine needs to be running. But it seems as though the first thing I need to do is up the output voltage of the converter from 10 volts to 12 volts. How? By adding a 4.7k potentiometer and twisting the knob to turn up the voltage to a full 12 volts of power! At least I know the neutral switch works!

A summary of what I have done

Its quite a list of things I have done in order of complexity:

- modify CB650/750 lower triple clamp by welding on XL250S steering stem
- modify rear brake plate of KZ650 to suit XL500S front forks
- modify XR600 front axle to allow KZ650 wheel to bolt to XL500S forks
- modify Suz RM250Z front brake cable to suit new front brake set-up
- modify XL185S wiring harness to suit new 12 volt guages & XL500S
- fit new 12 volt LCD gauges & speedo sender unit to KZ650 rear wheel
- fit 6 volt to 12 volt converter for gauges
- modify rear wheel spacers to allow fitment of KZ 650 rear wheel
- modify rear brake cable mounting pint to suit KZ650 wheel
- modify ZX12 chain guard to fit XL500S
- modify underside of XL250S tank to fit XL500S
- modify CB250 headlight & headlight housing to allow fitting of gauges etc
- modify and fit steel & chrome mudguards/fenders
- fit bumble-bee rear tail light to modified bracket
- elapsed time for project around 7 years and its not done yet!

More wiring tidy up

Fixing and tidying up the wiring....

So how much has it cost so far?

.

Before vs After

AFTER

BEFORE

Almost Done

H O N D A      X L 5 0 0 S    M O T A R D

Rear Brake sorted FINALLY

After a lot a rooting around with the previous brake-rod arrangement, I reverted back to the original cable arrangement. Just made up a new bracket to make the cable work at the drum end. And modified the brake light spring so its works! PHEW!

All thats left now is the indicator-indicator lights in the gauge cluster, which looks like an auto electrician job.....

Rear Brake Shenanigans

Long story-short. The original cable operated rear brake does not work with the Kawasaki wheel, the cable position is wrong.So I went to the wreckers and bought a brake rod, bolted it through the foot lever and used a shorter drum lever and it seems to work ok. One downside is now the kickstart lever interferes with it, so a little more cut n shut is needed!