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Back to work this week so I am finally posting pics of the finished product.

When I originally built Mr.Honda I used the chromed headlight shell from the GL1000 and the wires that would normally go inside the headlight shell wouldn't all fit inside of it so I crammed about half of them into a couple of rubber wiring boots and tucked them up behind the headlight. I was never happy with it but it worked. The new reflector/lens unit I installed a few years ago wouldn't fit inside the GL1000 headlight shell so I had to change to a plastic one that was deeper but because the reflector needed more room the wires inside the shell were even more crowded. That shell cracked this year so I have replaced it with a metal Suzuki one from Cycle Salvage that has a bit more room inside but, since none of those wires actually connect to the headlight, I decided not to put any wires into it except those from the HID ballast (where the turn signal cancelling unit used to be) that actually go to the headlight. Since most of the wires connect to the instrument panel or the new front panel it is mounted to I ran them into the new box instead.


Here's the back of the front panel. I wanted to be able to take it apart for service without having to cut wires so I put connectors on everything. The large round item is an L-pad to control the volume of the speakers - the cheapo bike radios from China (under $20 on eBay) work pretty well but they are NOT waterproof so I mounted the replacement for the one that died in the sidecar where it doesn't get rained on but I can't reach the controls while driving.


The finished product (well, almost - I will be mounting the new windshield this afternoon).




The light coloured dots below the instrument panel are:
1st row - turn signal indicators (red LEDs)
2nd row - screws to fasten terminal strips (see pic of back of panel above)
3rd row - bike headlight indicator (white LED), neutral light (green LED), sidecar headlight indicator (white LED)

The red button is for the Oogah horn. The white mini toggle switch cuts power to the radio (the red LED indicator is behind the switch handle) and the black knob is speaker volume.

Edit: Pics hosted on Photobucket replaced

Very nice and well thought out.

I have driven more than 400 Km with the new instrument panel now and my odometer is reading about 10% low. I haven't had an opportunity to check the speedometer but I suspect it is reading about the same based on how fast the traffic normally travels on my commute. I have been in touch with the seller and they are waiting for a reply from the factory about this.

The tach bounces around a bit but not as much as the one on the 650 does. I think I will have to look into changing where the one on the 650 picks up its signal and maybe change it (it is connected directly to the coil right now so maybe I can move it to where the spark units plug in instead). I have noticed on both of them that the tach sometimes reads much higher than it should when I roll on the throttle and drops back to a more normal reading after a few seconds. I am not too concerned with this - after all, why do these bikes need tachs anyway? I shift mostly by feel so the tach is really only useful as a backup speedometer. That is almost never needed on a summer bike but mechanical speedo cables on winter machines tend to accumulate moisture at the lowest point (4-6" from the speedo drive) which freezes and then the inner cable twists apart and you have to remember what the RPM is for the speed you want to go in the gear you want to drive in. This is not an issue with the electronic speedometer.

BTW I forgot to mention how I mounted the speedometer sensor: I started by drilling a hole in the disc carrier to mount the magnet just inboard of the disc itself. I changed my forks this year to reduce the trail for sidecar use (I really have to get around to a write up about that) and I had to make up some spacers from 1/4" aluminum plate to get the calipers centred over the discs. I made a long narrow piece with a hole at each end instead of 2 small round spacers for the right caliper (now non-TRAC) because I figured it would be easier to handle during assembly. I ran a die over the sensor to convert it to a normal M10 thread and drilled & tapped the spacer to match, then drilled a hole in the caliper carrier to clear the sensor. After test fitting and adjusting the sensor so that it had about 1mm clearance when the magnet passed by I added a drop of super glue to lock it into place. This means that I have a tidy installation (most people won't realize it is home made) and when I have to remove the caliper the only metal part hanging on the speedometer wire will about an ounce of aluminum. I also had to extend the speedometer wires by about 10" to reach into the new instrument panel.

nice work, and it was well thought out. i always try to do connectors, as you did, to make removal easier

Real nice! I'd sure like to see a pic of your speedo magnet mount. Someday I will get mine back from the dealer and will try it again. I will probably copy some of what you did. Does the fuel gage work on yours? They are supposed to fix mine so that it will work with the GL1100 fuel sender.

For the magnet I just drilled a hole in the disc carrier (aluminum part of the disc assembly) as close to the actual disc (stainless steel part of assembly), popped the magnet into the hole and snapped the clip on to hold it in place. I didn't bother with a pic because how else could you do it?

I didn't take a pic of the sensor mount because I was in a hurry to get the bike back on the road and besides nobody else has that spacer the I mounted it in. I hope to have the time to take pics when I work on the 650's front brake (more like the stock 1100 setup) in a few weeks.

Does anyone know how to switch one of these units from kph to mph?

It has to be done at the factory.

I am fed up with the Chinese instrument panel. I am trying to get the seller to refund my money so I can buy a better one. Maybe a Trail Tech Vapor or a low end Koso or something like that.

Sidecar Bob wrote:Snip: I am fed up with the Chinese instrument panel. I am trying to get the seller to refund my money

I'm sorry to hear you've gotten to that point with it. Please let us know how the refund part of that goes.

Resurrecting a thread from 3 years ago to provide closure:

The seller was no help so I was stuck with it as it was. The next year I knew I wasn't going to be using the 'Wing much but with less than 3100Km on that instrument panel I knew I had to get rid of it. When I bought the one for the 650 the first one that came had a defective tach so the seller sent me a replacement. I took the defective one apart and turned it into this and and installed it as a temporary replacement Last year the display started to go bad. Some days it would be OK but other times but within a few minutes of driving the lower left corner would start to turn dark and it would progress up across the speedometer until I couldn't read anything. I had installed a Danmoto 180 Digital Cockpit on the 650 about the same time as I put the one with the flames on the 'Wing and I liked the Danmoto a lot better so I ordered another one for the 'Wing. Stuff happened to keep me from installing it until now but its in & working now http://www.ngwclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=60801

BTW: It looks like I replaced it just in time. The day I started changing to the Danmoto, with somewhere between 3000 and 3100 Km on it, the "flames" instrument panel's odometer changed to a row of reversed lower case "h"s (the mirror of hhhhhhhh), similar to what the one on the 650 did a couple of months before I replaced it.