New dash / electrical stuff

I made this dash / gauge holder out of 5052 aluminum, polished it and then anodized it black. I reproduced the same indicator lights as the original but out of 3mm LEDs mounted in stainless steel bezels. I used the stock mount points and rubber cushions and bolts. Oil temp and water temp are on the left, yellow and red lights, neutral is green, hi - blue and signal is white. All distinctive colors. No labels though.

I got all my LEDs resistors and bezels from Oznium.com. Good place, quick delivery.
http://www.oznium.com/led
http://www.oznium.com/led-holder

Here's the bezels:

Mine didn't mount down in there like that because I put them in through the top so they couldn't pull through. This required heat-shrinking each wire tediously, as well as soldering resistors and making a custom wiring harness for the whole gauge assembly. I also filed down the LED so that the light was more dispersed and less focused.

I borrowed a 3-wire diode from elsewhere on the bike, brought left and right turn-signal positives to it and then jumped on the ground wire that was used for the high beam. This combined with a LED turnsignal flasher gizmo from CusomLED. See link below:
http://www.customled.com/products/flasher_relay/flasher_relay.htm
This is a slick flasher that is a direct replacement for the stock old style relay. Pretty much plug and play for 2 or 3 wire systems. Mounts real easy and is fully sealed.

As for headlights, I had Eastern Beaver build me a custom hi/low H4 relay and lighting harness that fit my bike just right. Well mostly just right. James built it just like I asked, I just didn't think of one thing. No big deal, it's all hidden under the seat. I got the sealed ceramic connector. No more power through the switch.

The new dash is holding the Veypor VR2, which I'm pretty excited about using once I get it running.
http://www.veypor.com/vr2.html

The Veypor has data logging functionality but doesn't input temperatures etc. I really wanted the MyChron3 karting gauge but it was just too expensive for me. I got the Veypor for around $220 and it does a lot of really neat calculations that the MyChron doesn't. Plus the Veypor is way minimal and that's what this bike is all about, minimalization.

I got over my gas tank intimidation issues today, after reading an encouraging email from Alan in Canada. I have just a few final touches to make on the shaping and I'll start forming the new sides. I took a cheap hammer and dolly set from Harbor Freight and filed them down into custom shapes to get in all the hard to reach places and get my curves just right. I started feeling really comfortable and confident shaping metal today, for the first time. I was able to perfectly hammer out the seat indentations at the rear of the tank! Woo hoo!

I'll get a metal shaping and tank progress post up soon.
Cheers for now.
-Stephen