82 GS450E Scrambler from Aus - Done!

[peteGSX]

Re: 82 GS450E Scrambler from Aus - A little more progress...

What about Eastern Beaver up the road in Japan. Should be able to get waterproof Sumitomo connectors from there overnighted.
http://www.easternbeaver.com/Main/Elec__Products/Connectors/connectors.html

Or try these guys, http://www.alanco.com.au/retail_catalogue_page/cat/LL.html

Eastern Beaver have them... still not gonna make it by the weekend though. If I'm going to retro-fit them to the old gauges after I chop, that's probably the preference for buying them as I've heard good things about them before.

Alanco only have the larger style auto connectors like Jaycar, Supercheap, etc.

Thanks Teazer

 

[peteGSX]

Re: 82 GS450E Scrambler from Aus - A little more progress...

Well it wasn't raining when I got home from work yesterday, although the humidity was still quite up there last night. However, the weather's only predicted to get wetter this week so I had to bite the bullet and paint last night and hope it turns out ok.

This is how the primer turned out, took these in the afternoon:

I managed to miss a bit around the hinges but that's only inside where it won't be seen, so if the paint peels off there it's no big deal.

Then after 5 coats of the 3M satin black:

The photos are horrible because the camera refused to focus on the black parts in front of the black background, so this is a rare case of them looking better in the metal than in the photo.

Between coats I worked out the stock wiring colours that need to be attached to the Acewell:

So the only thing I need to do before getting stuck in on Saturday is to work out the tyre circumference.

 

[hillsy]

Re: 82 GS450E Scrambler from Aus - A little more progress...

Take the connector you're after to a bike wreckers and ask them if you can scrounge through their old harnesses. It's a pretty common connector in "bike world", so you should be able to find something.

As for your wheel circumference, get a piece of chalk, mark the tyre where it meets the ground (on the ground and the tyre), push your bike forward until the mark on the tyre comes around again and mark it on the floor. Now measure between the chalk marks on the floor and that's it.

I'm not sure if it says it on your Acewell instructions, but the magnet needs to pass the sensor DIRECTLY OVER either one of the 2 lines marked on the sensor (not in between). And a max of 8mm clearance between the magnet and the sensor. If you don't have this right you will get erratic speedo readings and you will think your Acewell is crap.

 

[peteGSX]

Re: 82 GS450E Scrambler from Aus - A little more progress...

Take the connector you're after to a bike wreckers and ask them if you can scrounge through their old harnesses. It's a pretty common connector in "bike world", so you should be able to find something.

As for your wheel circumference, get a piece of chalk, mark the tyre where it meets the ground (on the ground and the tyre), push your bike forward until the mark on the tyre comes around again and mark it on the floor. Now measure between the chalk marks on the floor and that's it.

I'm not sure if it says it on your Acewell instructions, but the magnet needs to pass the sensor DIRECTLY OVER either one of the 2 lines marked on the sensor (not in between). And a max of 8mm clearance between the magnet and the sensor. If you don't have this right you will get erratic speedo readings and you will think your Acewell is crap.

Hey Hillsy, sounds like we're on the same page here.


Don't think I have any chalk but was going to run a strip of masking tape to accomplish the same thing. Will do about three runs side by side to triple check my measurement also.


The Acewell directions are a little dodgy but I've done heaps of reading on the Acewell forums and Internet at large, so my speed sensor bracket should have it lined up nicely on one of the lines on the sensor and should have it around 5 or 6mm from the magnet, so that should be all good.


Only wreckers I know of now is Albion Motorcycles and every time I go there I come away feeling like he's been fishing in my wallet... plus I won't have a chance to get there this week. It's all good, I'm gonna chop the plugs off the gauges and go from there.

 

[peteGSX]

Re: 82 GS450E Scrambler from Aus - A little more progress...


It was a bit overcast this morning before I went to work but I took some quick shots of how the paint turned out:

All in all I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, especially for a night time crappy light paint job.


Then I just sat them in place to see how they'll go:

They should go well, and that battery box cover should blend in nicely too.


I also cut the rubber out to stick on, the battery box cover is going to get a bit just around the + terminal as a just in case measure and the speed sensor bracket will get a bit on the back to protect the fork leg paint. I hope to glue them on tomorrow night after giving the paint another 24 hours.

Then I took an idea from one of the other fellas over on the GSR and got my old bikini fairing hung up out of the way finally:

I also started preparing for the next project this morning by printing this out at work:

I'm hoping tomorrow night I can get the rubber glued on and measure the circumference of the front tyre, then hopefully on Friday night I can start pulling the tank and gauges off and get stuck in.

 

[hillsy]

Re: 82 GS450E Scrambler from Aus - A little more progress...

This is probably the tidiest sensor mount I've seen

Or if you have a rear disc, this can be pretty tidy as well

 

[peteGSX]

Re: 82 GS450E Scrambler from Aus - A little more progress...

Cheers Hillsy, that is a real tidy install! Not sure mine will end up anywhere close to that but I hope it won't be too bad.


I did look at under the caliper to keep it a little more low profile, but it'd be a very complicated bracket to get it under there, so I'll stick with in front of the fork.



As for tonight, I didn't get the rubber glued on, but I did at least get the front tyre circumference measured up.


Don't have any chalk handy, so stuck some masking tape on the front tyre:

Marked where the tape hit the ground with another piece of tape, then rolled it forward three different times and marked each where the tape ended up.

That netted me with two measurements of 1961mm and one of 1962mm. So, for the purposes of leniancy I'll enter the circumference as 1970mm to start with to try to cope for a bit of extra tread when the tyres are new and a small increase when the tyres heat up.


I do intend to verify with a GPS also as a guy at work loaned me an external GPS device that should work with the work iPhone.


I also did a little on the battery box cover by installing the lock properly:

If I'm lucky, I'll be able to get into some prep work tomorrow night and glue the rubber on. We'll see...

 

[MotorbikeBruno]

Re: 82 GS450E Scrambler from Aus - A little more progress...

Awesome! I may steal your idea on that speedo mount for my Acewell! That's the last thing I need (other than a seat) to get mine on the road! Looking good man!

 

[peteGSX]

Re: 82 GS450E Scrambler from Aus - A little more progress...

Awesome! I may steal your idea on that speedo mount for my Acewell! That's the last thing I need (other than a seat) to get mine on the road! Looking good man!

Thanks mate! If all goes to plan it should be mounted up tomorrow, so my suggestion is wait to see if it works before copying it... not all my ideas end up being good

 

[MotorbikeBruno]

Re: 82 GS450E Scrambler from Aus - A little more progress...

They seem to work 60% of the time EVERY TIME! haha

 

[peteGSX]

Re: 82 GS450E Scrambler from Aus - A little more progress...

They seem to work 60% of the time EVERY TIME! haha

Hahahaha so true...

 

[peteGSX]

Re: 82 GS450E Scrambler from Aus - A little more progress...

The Acewell and battery box cover are on! At last...


First, back track to Friday night and I got the rubber glued onto the speed sensor bracket and battery box cover:

Left them clamped there overnight so the glue had a chance to set properly and really hang onto the rubber. Not too concerned about the speed sensor bracket but I really want the rubber in the battery box cover to stay there over the + battery terminal.


Battery installation tested ok:

Bit hard to see but I ended up moving the terminals back to the front mounting points and bent the connectors 90 degrees so I could route the wiring properly, and I removed the pigtail for the trickle charger as it was making it far too difficult:

And it does help the battery blend in better, turned out better than I expected:

And onto the Acewell install...

 

[peteGSX]

Re: 82 GS450E Scrambler from Aus - A little more progress...


Rightio... the Acewell install was an adventure. I ran out of time to finish it all on Saturday due to starting late and having to vote, but I got it finished up and a quick test ride in today and I'm happy to report it's awesome


I have it calibrated ok, reads a couple of km's faster than I'm doing going by the GPS speed which is fine by me and the tacho seems to read accurately which seems to be a difficult thing with these for a lot of people.


Anyway...


Magnetic bolt on and speed sensor semi-mounted for testing:

I cable tied the Acewell to the footpeg temporarily to make sure everything worked ok:

And I found out why my tacho wasn't working... it seems the crimping of the cylinder head end of the brand new cable wasn't done real well and when I pulled the cable out the end stayed seated on the tacho drive, so obviously the drive was spinning the end but the end wasn't spinning the cable:

So once everything tested ok I mounted the Acewell up where it will go for the time being:

The harness for it reaches just under the front of where the tank sits so I needed to make a short harness to reach from there to where the main harness connectors are:

The old gauges and cables set aside, and I removed the plug from the gauge side to make the short harness I need:

 

[peteGSX]

Re: 82 GS450E Scrambler from Aus - A little more progress...


So I referred to the wiring diagrams I printed and labelled last week and got most of the harness done:

And I remembered I got a mini blade fuse holder with some 5 amp fuses a while back in preparation for the voltage monitor that I never ended up using:

I made a lead to run from the battery to the short harness for the clock power as it needs to be permanently on to keep the time, and note I changed this later so the bullet connector is a female. I didn't think it through properly the first time and that would have ended up with a live bullet connector floating around near the frame... never a good thing!

Part of my testing included holding the tacho wire against the negative side of the Dynatek coil to make sure it would signal it correctly which it did, so I made up the lead for that and the 1M resistor they provide is under the yellow heatshrink there:

You can just make it out screwed under the Dynatek terminal of the left coil:

I finalised the speed sensor mounting and cable tied the wire up the brake cable. It's not the neatest install in the world but it's neat enough for me, although if I'm really keen I might make another bracket later and move it under the brake caliper like Hillsy posted earlier. I didn't think I'd have room but once the speedo cable is gone there should be room now...

Finished up the short harness:

And got it connected up and all the wiring cable tied down securely and out of the way:

 

[peteGSX]

Re: 82 GS450E Scrambler from Aus - A little more progress...


And there she is...

And a dodgy little video of it in action:





I took her out for a short test run this avo with the iPhone as a GPS speedo and it worked real well. I ended up setting the circumference to 1980mm to give me some leeway and I'm something like 2 or 3 km's slow at 60kph so I'm happy with that.


I definitely need to make a proper bracket though as it's a little annoying having it on one side but the main thing is now I get to look straight down at the dent I had to put in the headlight bucket to clear the ignition switch... and I also want my gear position indicator back and probably a voltage monitor of some sort as well.


I had to duck into the supermarket for a minute and when I went to leave there was a white van crawling past the bike with a guy and woman taking a good long look at the bike... I think they were trying to work out what it was... sorta made me feel a bit proud, but then I ended up in front of them and thought they were following me! False alarm though as they turned off... haha


All in all a successful day... but I also do need to do the tacho drive block off yet. I attempted that today and I discovered I manage to round the head of the bolt when I installed the tacho drive during the rebuild Will figure that out another time.


Oh, and I had an interesting situation on Friday where by the time I got to work I almost couldn't get her into 1st. Turns out the nut on the front heim joint of the gear shift linkage was loose to the point where I was shocked it was still on there, so I got to use my toolkit for the first time and tighten that up. Today I took it off again and put some blue locktite on it...

 

[peteGSX]

Re: 82 GS450E Scrambler from Aus - Battery box cover and Acewell on...

So it's time to get a proper bracket done up for the Acewell, stock gear position indicator, and a voltage monitor.

I've bought this on eBay, just waiting for it to arrive:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LED-MOTORCYCLE-BIKE-Battery-level-and-Charge-monitor-/200609174686?pt=UK_Motorcycle_Parts&hash=item2eb53d149e#ht_3605wt_952

So here's the plan on the whiteboard:

The bottom drawing there is based on the existing bracket for the original gauges and will be made out of the 2.5mm alu.

You can see where the Acewell will mount on the right, the rectangular cutout at the bottom is for the gear position indicator, and the round hole is where I expect I'll need to put the voltage monitor and the two wires will need to exit there.

The top drawing will form a box that will butt up against the side of the Acewell and you can see the cutout for the gear position indicator and the hole for the voltage monitor.

I still have plenty of the perspex here from the fly screen so I'm thinking it would look good if I laid a sheet of perspex over the entire boxed area there.

I'll have to see how things pan out.

Here's the bottom bracket drawn out on the 2.5mm alu. ready to cut out:

I ordered a bunch of stainless steel nuts and bolts yesterday as well as some alu. tubing. The plan is to make standoffs with the tubing to support the box and gear position indicator and the bolts will go through the tubing to bolt it to the bottom bracket. I hope that makes some sense...

One of the guys on the GSR suggested a switch on the voltage monitor so I could switch it to the battery monitor mode if I want which is a good idea, so I may incorporate a switch in there somewhere yet.

 

[Cafe Redneck]

Re: 82 GS450E Scrambler from Aus - Battery box cover and Acewell on...

Like the Acewell, I looked in to getting one, little to pricey for me though. Great job on the battery cover. I'll be watching your gauge mount build. I'll be making one in the next week or 2. I really need to update my build, I rebuilt the carbs last week and it is up and running now. Good luck on the gauge mount, though you don't need it, you always do quality work.

 

[MotorbikeBruno]

Re: 82 GS450E Scrambler from Aus - Battery box cover and Acewell on...

Like the Acewell, I looked in to getting one, little to pricey for me though. Great job on the battery cover. I'll be watching your gauge mount build. I'll be making one in the next week or 2. I really need to update my build, I rebuilt the carbs last week and it is up and running now. Good luck on the gauge mount, though you don't need it, you always do quality work.

^^^^^ what he said! I just got mine wired up and insurance on the bike! Taking her for a test ride tonight! That gauge mount looks like it will be perfect man!

 

[peteGSX]

Re: 82 GS450E Scrambler from Aus - Battery box cover and Acewell on...

Like the Acewell, I looked in to getting one, little to pricey for me though. Great job on the battery cover. I'll be watching your gauge mount build. I'll be making one in the next week or 2. I really need to update my build, I rebuilt the carbs last week and it is up and running now. Good luck on the gauge mount, though you don't need it, you always do quality work.

Thanks mate, I'm real happy with the Acewell. I looked around a bit and compared to a lot of others it was dirt cheap and it's ADR approved here so I can't get any grief from having it installed either. The battery cover has worked out much better than I thought, really glad I painted it so it blends in a bit more.

I'm hoping to get the gauge mount cut out possibly one afternoon next week when I can make a bit of noise with the jigsaw as it's a bit hard to do that later on at night.

And yes, you definitely need to update your build

^^^^^ what he said! I just got mine wired up and insurance on the bike! Taking her for a test ride tonight! That gauge mount looks like it will be perfect man!

Cheers mate, you'll have to let us know how it goes!

I'm hoping the gauge mount works out well... just have to wait and see... hopefully not too long though!

 

[peteGSX]

Re: 82 GS450E Scrambler from Aus - Battery box cover and Acewell on...


Nothing hugely exciting at the moment except of course the Kat run yesterday which was awesome and I got a little more done tonight on the bracket.


I got 5 minutes this avo to put this magnetic tool holder up so I can put stuff there out of the way while I'm still using them without having to put them in a drawer or whatever:

And then I got the two halves of the bracket fully drawn out (except for the holes on the top part) and cut out of the larger sheets of alu. ready to have a go with the jigsaw. I'm hoping to get 15 minutes after work tomorrow when I can make some noise to cut the curved and awkward parts.

If you look close you'll see I had to make some on-the-fly adjustments where I'd messed up measuring, but I'm glad I messed up measuring *before* I cut rather than after...


And my stainless hardware I got for putting it all together and the aluminium tube to make the standoffs with:

Fingers crossed the next update has the main shapes cut out ready to bend and get the fiddly stuff done.