My dash


Here, try this fresh grog I made while I tell you about my new dash.

There are two corresponding pix in a.b.m.h. making this illustrated
drivel. It looks better in person but I wanted to show the wring.

One more thing to out of the way. I like to ride, I like buttons, and
I bore easily. The technical term is ADD but that's unimportant now.

Here's how I put together my dash.

The first thing to install was my radio. I bought a $500 kit from
biketronics.com and could not be happier. It comes with some nice
speakers and a Sony Receiver/CD player that works off of the stock
Harley hand controls. I bought the iPod interface at the same time .
The installation was cake (except for taking off the headlight
connector. HOW THE *** DO YOU DO THAT???)

Let me not forget the antenna. I needed a $5 bracket, a whip, and
another $2 of fasteners to screw the *** together. Harley has no kit
after redesigning the back end of the Ultras. So I was sold the $100
kit one must buy with a trunk to *move* the antenna away from the
*actual bits that I need*. So that took three trips to the dealer and
arguing with the parts druids. Thanks HD. I didn't need that.

Anyway, the next thing to go in was the HD cruise control. This was
not-so-much-cake as the directions had you referring back and forth to
the GD service manual. Not specific pages mind you, but "read about
remove the fairing elsewhere" type of ***. Then the next PITA was
maneuvering the cables around under the tank and through server al
holes. Not to mention the throttle cables! I have replaced many
throttle cables before but these were extremely anti-fun. In
retrospect, paying for three hours of labor would have been the way to
go for me.

But I do love the CC once installed. I still need to tune the lash and
figure out the controls better. They are not intuitive.

Now for the fun stuff. On top of the dash, from right to left...

I mounted a GPS (If Garmin made a waterproof unit at this price I
would have bought it. I have a Magellan 2200T. Not a bad piece
certainly, but the Garmin is a Mac next to the Magellan's PC, if you
know what I mean). This I attached via it's suction cup after first
gluing the *especially* *sucky* *disk* to my dash (more on the dash
later). As this was the only piece not velcro'd down I got a bit of
nylon rope for piece of mind (pink for the anti-biker in me).

Nest you'll see the Illinois ipass auto toll collector. If you don't
know what this is you live a blessed life. If you do know what it is
you need one.

OK next is the radar detector, a $40 special from Woot. I think it's a
Whistler, not complete crap and it did alert me to an unmarked car
following me so I'm keeping it for now.

Then comes a Sirius Satellite Radio receiver that I got cheap under my
Dad's account. The wire runs into the radios front panel aux in.

Finally is the tiny sat radio antenna.

Oh wait. Off to the left of the dash is a pouch that holds my 60 GB
iPod.

The thing that puzzled me the most about the design, such as it is,
was power. A 2007 FLHT has but one cigarette lighter. If you've kept
count you know that I have three devices that would each enjoy their
own (the iPod draws power from the radio).

Getting some heat shrink and solder from Radio Shack I almost started
to really *** up some perfectly good adapters when I recalled seeing
a one-to-three cigarette lighter adapter in some auto parts store ad
years ago (scoffing no doubt at the time at the idiot who would have
so many devices).

So a quick call to Pep Boys and $6 later I saved myself a lot of pain.
All power is routed under the fairing to this adapter which is
velcro'd to the top of the radio.

As you can see I was not so slick with the six foot wire for the sat
input and the mile and a half of sat antenna wire. The are clipped
into place by a few self-adhesive cable runners clip thingies. When I
get back from the East coast I'll run it under the fairing as well.

So I took the bike out for a spin today to see how it all holds up.
Early reports are favorable. The GPS is readable but a hood may be
coming. Since I didn't hear the radar detector I was considering
tossing it when late in the day it freaked out to tell me about the
unmarked squad car *behind me*. This guy tailed me for a while after I
cut lanes (a no-no in the Land of Lincoln).

With 200 channels Satt Radio is cool (a Playboy radio station, why?)
but with 10k songs my iPod do I need both? I'll probably ditch one
after this season.

And now the dash itself. It came from eglide goodies
http://www.eglidegoodies.com/id127.html and set me back over $100. At
the time I thought that I could build one myself and looking back I
wish I had. The first issue is the foam tape used to protect the
windshield, in my case a new $100 Cee Bailey unit. Well the tape
completely obscures the bottom half inch of the windshield and looks
like crap, or the instructions are fucked. Scratch that, the
instructions *are* fucked but I did the best I could with I had. I
ended up cutting away the unsightly tape sticking above the fairing.

But here's the real bitch. Because the dash uses three, 1/4" folded
tabs to catch and hold the inner fairing lip it puts unequal pressure
on the windshield as it is tightened down.

This leads to a fucking crack in a brand new aerospace quality
windshield. (see photo #2). To keep it from spreading and cracking in
half one must drill a tiny hole in the glorious new windshield. Grrr.

So all in all a serviceable set-up that should last me until winter.

Next steps:
o Build a custom mount for the GPS *under* the dash to help with the
glare.
o rerun audio and antennae wires
o move Satt antenna to rear fender for better reception
o mount iPod semi-permanently in saddlebag
o if I ditch the iPod I can mount the Satt under the dash too and then
use the rear aux input. Bonus!

Well if you're still here have some more grog.

Peace,

Mild Bill

PS Yes I know my garage looks like crap. I'll screw with that in 8
weeks and 10,000 miles. (:-{)}
.

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