You and two friends are wandering through the countryside and run across a field of hammers. One of you says "Amazing that hammers can grow!", another says "Who put the hammers here and why? It is silly." and the last one just gives thanks for the artist even if they don't understand the creation.
Which one are you?
If you don't know the purpose of this then ask the creator. If you don't like the purpose of this then take it to the original author of the inspiration. :)
Everyone has faith; it is a matter of what or whom you have faith in.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Monday, February 17, 2014
DL650 front turn signal replacement/graft
As many other people mention, the DL650 turn signals are easily broken. I found this out when I bumped the bike over into the riding mower one day which broke the front right signal beyond repair.
I wanted to replacement the front signals with something a little smaller and less fragile. I had concern over replacing them with flush mount or short stalks due to DMV inspections. What I finally decided on was grafting Lockhart Phillips units onto the stalk from the OEM units. The end result was reasonable and meets the goals I had.
This image shows the OEM and the replacement for comparison.
Here is the mess of pieces from my broken signal. I hadn't cut the "extra" portion of the stalk off the broken signal at this point. A hacksaw worked fine on the rubber stalk but takes care to cut neatly. Note that I had to cut the connectors off the unit so I could feed it through the hole in the OEM stalk. A little soldering was done to connect the OEM connectors which made reconnecting to the wiring harness easy.
This shows what I kept from the OEM. First remove the lens cover and take the hard plastic portion on the left off of the rubber stalk. Below, I had already cut the "extra" portion of the rubber stalk off at about the point where it enters the hard plastic lens enclosure.
The basic reassembly is something like below. I did put the black wire protector on but don't show that here. Putting that black cover on was pretty time consuming.
Here is the basic result. A little black gasket sealer was used to join and seal the new unit with the salvaged rubber stalk. It holds together fine and the gasket sealer matches the fairly matte black of the rubber stalk portions.
Here is a comparison of OEM to the grafted result. It looks slightly better on the bike. Using the OEM portion at the fairing prevents needing to find a way to cover the rest of the opening (that would not be covered by the new unit by itself) which would likely be somewhat difficult.
[Edit 2014/02/25] Took a couple quick pictures of the end result.
I wanted to replacement the front signals with something a little smaller and less fragile. I had concern over replacing them with flush mount or short stalks due to DMV inspections. What I finally decided on was grafting Lockhart Phillips units onto the stalk from the OEM units. The end result was reasonable and meets the goals I had.
This image shows the OEM and the replacement for comparison.
Here is the mess of pieces from my broken signal. I hadn't cut the "extra" portion of the stalk off the broken signal at this point. A hacksaw worked fine on the rubber stalk but takes care to cut neatly. Note that I had to cut the connectors off the unit so I could feed it through the hole in the OEM stalk. A little soldering was done to connect the OEM connectors which made reconnecting to the wiring harness easy.
This shows what I kept from the OEM. First remove the lens cover and take the hard plastic portion on the left off of the rubber stalk. Below, I had already cut the "extra" portion of the rubber stalk off at about the point where it enters the hard plastic lens enclosure.
The basic reassembly is something like below. I did put the black wire protector on but don't show that here. Putting that black cover on was pretty time consuming.
Here is the basic result. A little black gasket sealer was used to join and seal the new unit with the salvaged rubber stalk. It holds together fine and the gasket sealer matches the fairly matte black of the rubber stalk portions.
Here is a comparison of OEM to the grafted result. It looks slightly better on the bike. Using the OEM portion at the fairing prevents needing to find a way to cover the rest of the opening (that would not be covered by the new unit by itself) which would likely be somewhat difficult.
[Edit 2014/02/25] Took a couple quick pictures of the end result.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)