April 22 & 23, 2008 Day 9/10 (Kickstand, Forward Controls, and Yet More Wiring)

Today I was going to tackle the kickstand and some other bolt on stuff that could be done relatively quickly, while I let the wiring marinate. It’s hard to start out the day with wiring. Maybe it is just me, but I need a primer before tackling that.

I started with the kickstand, feeling if I couldn’t get that put on maybe I should call it a day. Now I am starting to understand that nothing is straight forward, which is both good and bad. I am out of the “it just bolts on” mode FOR SURE. So I get the kickstand out and in all of its glory, it has 3 bolts. Hallelujah. But then……out falls another part labeled “adjustable kick stand”. What the heck could this be? Don’t you just bolt on the kickstand and use it, just like a bicycle? NO is the answer, in case you did not know. So I flip and twist the little chrome part with a little adjustable set screw, before deciding I probably don’t need it and install the kickstand in a matter of a couple minutes. I admire the shiny chrome and dream of the bike leaning against this magnificent chrome part. I fold the kickstand up only to find it folds right into the belt drive. Ahhhh…maybe I need the little chrome adjusty thingy. Back to twisting and turning like a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit, until I figure it out………Except when I mount it that way it won’t fold up!!!!! I then see that the corner (very tip) op the part is not cut correctly and grinding off 1/10” would solve that. So here we are, almost an hour into the day and I am just getting the kickstand mounted, which works perfectly now.

Now for the RPM billet machined forward controls. These thankfully came with mounting instructions because you have to take the footrest apart to get the third mounting bolt into the frame. I followed the instructions and had them mounted in short time. I found it interesting that the right foot control has a master cylinder for the rear brake and the forward brake has a master cylinder near the hand brake, unlike a car that has a single master cylinder with a proportioning valve.

The wiring started by installing the 30 amp circuit breaker and defining what wires coming from the brain I was going to use and those that would be bundled together and tucked into the electronics pocket. When I originally started this project I had intended on installing front and rear blinkers, but after some though I decided I did not want the blinkers taking away from the overall look of the bike. This left me perplexed at the amount of wires running from the hand controls to the brain. I continued on and starting pairing up the wires from the hand controls to the brain with blue painters tape. In case you did not know painters tape can be your best friend during a wiring job of this size. It provides a quick, removable way of joining wires to be connected and a great insulator during testing. I drilled and tapped the holes to mount the circuit breaker next to the brain.