“While your in there…” is a disease. It’s something I fight all the time. It recently attacked my 690.
It all started one day when I went to replace the blown LED headlight. I had ordered a new one from Cyclops and was ready to put it in.
To do so means that you need to pull the headlight mask off. Easy enough.
But man! Will you look at this rat’s nest of wiring? How could anyone be happy with this? So, “While I am in here…”
So I started to think how I could clean this up. It’s not as easy as it sounds as the headlight lens fills up much of what you might think is available space.
In searching for answers I found an image of a clean setup on the Rolling Hobo’s site. His is a 2013, so he doesn’t have as much wiring (no ABS) but this is what I might aspire to!
I’m working on it – I’m not quite done yet as this doesn’t quite work. It’s too bulky and I can’t quite get the headlight to mount but I’m close…
“While I am in here…” I also had a broken tab on my dash panel. I took a few pics of the broken tab and and when I went to get them in Google, they had created a movie with music for the pic – so enjoy!
I ordered the right part and started pulling that apart.
That’s when I found a pin in the connection to my dash was bent.
So I might as well fix that “While I am in here…” right?
Pin aligned, dash panel replaced, new bulb and…
I wonder if I should replace the front fender? It had only the one dowel when I bought the bike and it sure is hard to smash all that wiring to put it back together, I heard a newer fender would help so “While I am in here…” I ordered a fender for a new 500. Why a 500? Because I heard they were easy to mod, stiffer and more coverage.
Unfortunately it was way too different and so I ordered a new stock fender.
That stock fender with a fender bag tends to rub the front tire when I hit bumps so “While I am in here…” I might as well brace it – give it a little more support. Bought a strap of aluminum, drilled a few holes, gave it a little bend and you can now just about stand on my front fender!
I added a little rubber wrapped around the aluminum to cut down on the chatter. That seems to be working well.
I crammed the headlight back on and thought I had it all good – but somehow I managed to mess up the connection that powers my USB ports. It was late, the sun was going down,
I was tired and making mistakes so I decided it was time for a
Instead. I’ll come back to the wiring issue later when I have more time.
He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, sometimes rides a road bike, has a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one, had a big cool orange one, rode a really slow one, and is currently building a perfect "BDR Weapon"). If that isn't enough, he makes cheese and sourdough bread, loves strong beer and good red wine, and poorly plays the Mandolin.
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