Lots of different activity today, it was cold this morning and rather than freezing my nuts off in the garage I thought I would devote some time to working out the electrics/as is and to be wiring diagrams/connector strategy and cable routes. At regular tea breaks I trotted out to the garage to check locations and types of connectors and consider cable routes, but mostly in the warm. I am one of those people that when confronted by a wiring diagram I first of all lose rational thought, start mentally skipping about and eventually become irritated at my own incompetence. Today I thought I conquer this and work through each circuit one by one on the original wiring diagram and decide where I would put connectors, what wires would be incorporated in the main loom and what would always be kept separate.
With connectors there is a real dilemma as they:
1. are always a potential failure point, too many and you have a risky system, too few and it is a pain in the arse when the box at the end goes AWOL and you have to dismantle half the bike to unplug the faulty bit of kit;
2. take up scarce space and need to be kept away from heat and moving parts;
3. need spare loom either side to ensure they are not in tension with the loom, and obviously also lots of gash wiring everywhere is unsightly.
After a couple of hours I had just about worked out a strategy for replacing the “as is” wiring when I thought I had better check how my MUV2 control box fitted into the equation. When I first got the MUV2 control unit, I glanced at the instruction manual and after about 5 minutes my eyes glazed over and I put the manual back in the box. In my ignorance, I had assumed it just replaced the fuse box. Oh no! It changes the whole way the bike will have to be wired. In all cases the switches instead of being on the power side of the active component move downstream of the active component to become effectively an earth switch. No relays required anywhere (except possibly one for the starter solenoid). Brilliant, because I never understood relays anyway or more particularly how to wire to them. Having spent another hour pondering what this meant I am far less daunted with the prospect of the rewire and I am pretty certain with my positioning of the unit directly underneath the ignition switch that I can dispense with about half the connectors on the bike without too much loss of maintainability. “Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain” somebody once said.
After 3 hours or so of studying electrics I felt I had to get my hands dirty and the garage had warmed up a bit by then. I thought I would make the hub for my rear brake hanger which I spent last evening drawing out and defining the sequence steps to machine it with the fewest movements of the workpiece in the chuck and therefore the greatest chance of a concentric /successful outcome.
Some while ago I bought some 3.1/4” offcut aluminium bar about 150mm long. I have a 3 jaw chuck in my lathe but it is not big enough to hold 3.1/4 “. With the lathe when I bought it I got a load of other kit including a plate with 4 jaws that would certainly take 3.1/4”. I spent the next two hours not succeeding in getting the 3 jaw chuck off the lathe and I broke my 5/16” chuck key in the process. It looks as though I shall have to make a tool to hold the drive shaft (3 peg holes 5/16” diameter 5/16” deep on the circumference of the 40mm drive shaft, 120 degrees apart) and may be use a chain wrench to undo the 3 jaw chuck
Feeling I had to have something tangible to show for the day, a bit more filling got done on the molds. I also made the elastic bushes for the exhaust hanger bracket using clear silicone bath sealer. The central aluminium bush is held in with place with 6, 8 and 12mm washers. I just hope enough air gets to the silicone so that it goes off.
