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hey guys.
im a bit unhappy with the amount of cables and wiring visible from the handlbar area on my XL so am wanting to make a headlight cowl. I tried with an offcut of my rear fender but it was half arsed and didnt really suit.
ive always loved the JVB D-Tracker sr500 so am wanting to replicate/add to the headlight cowl theyvw developed.
my plan is basically the same, but instead of finishing at the top triple, bring it up and forward a little bit to hide my trail tech. but still keep the flat section on top of the headlight.
ive never used fibreglass before so it will be a learning curve. my thoughts to make the mold would be chicken wire??
in a total newb so any help would be muchly appreciated
the inspiration
http://www.bikeexif.com/yamaha-sr500-3
Did you ever consider hiding the wires in the handlebars or are you using clipons? I ride a vstar 1100 classic and that was one of the first things I did was new handlebars in which I could hide the wiring. Cables should be seen in my opinion.
humm ive thought that but it still got to come out at the top triple and run behind the headlight which really dosent really remove any clutter to be honest
I needed a box to hide wires in behind the front race type number plate, so I made one out of carbon fiber to see if I could do it. The plug was so simple you would laugh. It's a six inch off cut off from a 4'x4" which I wrapped in tape and glassed it over leaving one end open and I trimmed it to size after it hardened a little.
Mine is open top and bottom, but you can modify the idea and wrap almost any suitably sized object. My fork legs are just over 4" wide between the fork shrouds, so it was a perfect size for what I wanted.
The way that the factories do it is to stuff all the connectors and surplus cable inside the headlamp shell. You could also wrap the cables in braided cable housing and hide the connectors under the tank out of the way.
yeah i saw that. im sure it would be easy if i wanted a square. this peice will be a little more involved due to having to go over and around the headlight.
I am actually in the process of doing this exact same thing. Like MNBikerPup suggested, I started with a form. Only instead of using foam I used two pieces of PVC drilled to a scrap piece of wood to represent the forks with some cardstock stretched and taped over top of them the exact distance between the forks. The PVC pieces were 1" ID, which with the wall thickness came out amazingly close to 33 mm (the diameter of my CL350 forks). It looks like this:
Then I just draped some sheets of glass mat over making sure that they hung down the sides. I used long pieces to weigh down the material and hopefully get it to stay taught. After it cured I popped the piece off, trimmed it to fit in between my triples, and popped it on for a test fit. Here's how it sits:
As you can probably tell, it doesn't fit tight with my current headlight. I would like to move back the bottom mount for the light and cut a hole in the plate to allow the bucket to be recessed, creating the illusion of a one piece cowl. If I was using a stock bucket, though, I probably would just cut the hole in the flat piece and glass the bucket right to it. I would also get some number plate fork clamps (from Omar's or eBay) to attach the flat piece to the forks. You could probably DIY it with some stainless worm gear hose clamps but you might have to glass in some kind of clip to actually hold the clamp to the piece.
Hope that helps. Whichever way you end up taking a swing at it let us know how it goes and be sure to post some good pictures! I hate threads where people take the time to ask for advice but never end up showing what they did/how they did it.
you can also just use a mixing bowl or salad bowl as a mold, just make sure to wrap it with tape designed for fiberglass use or spray with mold release.
Sometimes when we need new cowlings/ fairings we just use an existing piece and make a fiberglass mold. that way you can make more in the future.
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