Farkling Me Feejer

[Putts]

Frankly, I sorta don't give a shit about modern sport bikes.

They seem like 1990's autos to me---designed in a wind tunnel and all look the same.

Sorry, so far as lusting for a bike, I gots to have a bike with personality.

Here's the bike I love: Daisy.

But however much I love Daisy, she's still a pain in the ass if you need to be a thousand miles down the road.

Geez, it's a waste of Airhead to blow off a grand on superslab.

This is one of those times when cheating on you main squeeze to rub out a quicky is perfectly acceptable.

Meet my new road tool---it's not going to have a name, hell it's not even going to have a gender.

But I loves me a bitchen tool.

A buddy of mine needed dough to remodel his house, and decided the FJR had to go.

Sheesh, it's an '05 and he only had 2700 miles on it.

He couldn't get it sold and was starting to panic.

I did me some research (thaks for all your thoughtful postings here, guys) and everything came up rosy.

I decided it was a good deal even at the asking price, so I forked over the dough.

Now I'll be going down the road with a bit more than a bit more comfort and speed. Quite a bit more!

So I took it out for a run the other day and all I can say is that

while I may not be in love with the bike, I'm in love with the experience it delivers.

Look, I don't know shit about sport bikes. Never ridden one. But WOW!

Seemingly endless horse power and torque; rock solid high speed stability; low center of gravity;

and wonderfully progressive and controllable handling response.

****, a modern motorcycle is an amazing low-flight tool.

I'm happy as shit. :yahoo:

My first---and probably last---distant destination for the season is Denver,

some 700 miles distant, and is coming in two weeks, I've got to get this bike rigged up quick.

I cashed out some retirement money to pay off debts (seemed like paying off interest was a better return on the money:baldy)

and decided it was toy time so the bike and the farkles are cash payed

and I want to do it right and all at once.

Fucking Christmas in September! :santasmiley:

Been doing farkle research for the past week, yesterday and today was order day. Feel free to boo and hiss to your hearts content, or cheer, but this is what I got:

The FJR is a hot beast. They fixed it in '06, but my bike's an '05;

there are what's called Cromeit mods to control heat. They're found here: Left side , right side

Heeloooooo! I live in Montana, I'll take all the heat I can get. I'll suffer a coupla months a year. Next!

The FJR has a cool electric windshield, but everyone complain of suction with it up. You guys seemed to love the Vstream.

I'm also a fat old ****, so this 'sport crouch' thing has got to go. Any pressure on my wrists and I'll be seen the doc about more cortizone shots.

So, found some nice barbacks D&D Enterprisesthat also turn the handlebars out ten degrees for a more straight-on wrist.

Lastly, the thing ccomes stock with a sexy little ass piece, but it isn't worth a shit for strapping a bag to. I need a real rack, found this at Premier Cycleworks.

(Fuckers copywrited thier images or I'd drop one in.)

On to the cockpit:

To mount all the electronics, I gotta find a nice dash.

I likes the N/ Line just fine! unk:

They also have some simple, inobtrusive integrated clear plexiglass hand guards.

I asked around about radar detectors, and got a pretty consistant answer: Valentine V1.

But I kept searching and the story I got from press and quality vendors

was that Valentine hasn't kept up as much with POP stuff, new bands, DSP, and hoogemawhatchamacallits.

I went with the Beltronics STi

Meh.

I was going to stick with my ancient Garmin 176 on my G/S and just get a satellite radio---I wanted to wait to see what next season would bring in new GPS product.

But the FJR has only moderate alternator output, and the shelf has limited space, and I liked the prices I saw out there.

I like the space savings of XM/GPS in one, and I liked the features and look of the Zumo550.

I jumped. Got the XM antenna, too.

Lastly, I gotta run juice to all this shit. I found these nice fuseblocks

at www.fuzeblocks.com with the relay built in and both swtched and unswitches circuits. :thumb

Everythings ordered. Being a proper Airhead, it's time to take the fucker apart to see what I got to work with.

That's the next chapter I suppose.

Any other ideas?

(Smart ass comments about current incoming gear expected ... and welcome.)

My first question (there will no doubt be more) is where do you guys like to get the switched power signal from for the power relay on the fuzeblock?

(I've ordered the manual, just not here yet.)

 

[angus]

I used the tail lite wire easy to get to.

 

[Sherman]

Welcome Putts!

Man you dug right in. You should do well here!!!

Check the tech links and HMarc has a site, but I don't have that handy.

Also, spend several hours digging through the forum; most of your questions have already been addressed.

Where did the hand guards come from? Keep the pictures coming.

Bruce

 

[Putts]

Where did the hand guards come from?

They're available from N/Line as an option for the shelf. Oooops! Forgot the link, here it is---I'll repair my post.

Pix? You couldn't stop me from posting pix. I'll be damned if I'm gonna write a thousand words to replace each one.

Check the tech links and HMarc has a site, but I don't have that handy.

This one? Thanks, got it.

 

[wfooshee]

Nice work already! But Puh-lease tell me that's not you in your avatar!!!! Please?

Taillight wire's easy to get to if your fuse block is under the seat. I also have a terminal strip (no fuses, stuff wired there gets inline fuses) in the top right side, near the battery, and I used the blue wire to the running light on the fairing to trigger the relay to make that strip hot. It just didn't make sense to me to go under the seat for power to dashboard items.

I also carry the guts of a 10-dollar air compressor from Walmart under the pillion, way back in the back, with a pack of sticky-string plugs and their tools.

I found it interesting that you mentioned low center of gravity. Almost universally the complaint for people moving to the FJR is "top-heavy!" I can see coming from up high on a loaded dual-sport, but what most folks come from are much lower bikes. Nice to see a new point of view once in a while.

@Angus . . . . You know, you can edit out the quote block when replying, or just use the Fast Reply button to not even get a quote. Kind of useless to repeat the entire post immediately above yours to get one line in, if you see what I mean.

 

[Sherman]

I meant this one.

Maybe that should be in the tech links also.

 

[7xray]

Hey Putts,

Welcome to the group. Good to see another Bozeangelino on. Lets go riding.

Hey guys, Putts can really spin a good tale. Check out his nOObs journy on the ADV rider site.

Welcome again. Hope to catch up with you.

Cheers,

7X

 

[Putts]

Nice work already! But Puh-lease tell me that's not you in your avatar!!!! Please?

Sorry dude, that's me.

I used the blue wire to the running light on the fairing to trigger the relay to make that strip hot.

That sounds perfect; I'm putting the Fuzeblock up front on the main stanchion in the middle.

I found it interesting that you mentioned low center of gravity. Almost universally the complaint for people moving to the FJR is "top-heavy!" I can see coming from up high on a loaded dual-sport, but what most folks come from are much lower bikes. Nice to see a new point of view once in a while.

It's all relative I suppose, but the bike feels low, long, and sleek to me.

Hey Putts,Welcome to the group. Good to see another Bozeangelino on. Lets go riding.

Sounds good, mate. Getting a little late in the season, and I can't before I get back from Denver on the 13th of Oct. I'm also a single dad of a 12 year old girl, so I usually get out at the last minute when she decides to go to the mall or to a sleep over. I'll PM you if I see a window.

 

[Putts]

Ooooooooooooo! Goodies! Wonder what came in?

Aha! Rack, shelf, and tank bag.

A little fidgeting required for the rack.

Drill some pilot holes.

Then break out the heavy equipment.

Well look at that, there's a threaded hole in there.

Looks good.

Now, to take off the windshield. (Yeah, I'm a poser.)

No blow-by-blow on the shelf (it was just screwing things together), and it can't be completely mounted until I put on all the dash panels.

Oh! The mailman came, too.

Throttlemeisters!

Unscrew the stock bar end.

Use the included puller tool to remove the press fit threaded insert.

Pretty simple.

On the throttle side you have to roll back the grip ...

.. and insert the friction spacer.

Then insert the Throttlemeister (left side shown).

It takes a bit of fidgeting on the throttle side to get the insetion depth just right to have the friction engage nicely in the twist range.

Don't forget the locktite.

Next day: Look another box off the Fed Ex truck!

And April gives me one that came in the mail. (She's a bit sick and thinks she looks a mess.)

Ahhhhhhhh! Radar detector and bar setbacks.

Got to wait til the Fuzeblock comes to start the wiring, but the setbacks can go on now.

These are cake to install.

Here's some pix with only one on so you can see the setback and rise. They also rotate the bars out by ten degrees to relieve wrist stress.

Look at the brake fluid reservoirs to easily see the change.

You can really see the difference on this one.

Starting to look like a real road warrior cockpit. It's getting there.

 

[Wicked Webby]

Putts,

Hahahahaha!! Ya, them Momma's just don't wanna understand the farkle disease!!

My farkle link is below in my signature line.

Keep up the good work!

WW

 

[wfooshee]

Thanks for including a "real" picture. I feel better now.

 

[Putts]

Where were we? Oh yeah, more boxes:

(Covered up the addresses, Nev. 'Course the cat's a bit out of the bag now.)

What's in today's delivery?

Sweet! Stickers, thanks Gadget Boy, my Zumo, and the heart of it all, my little Fuzeblock.

Now that I've got most of the bits that go on the shelf, I can start drilling holes.

Let's see, where's that reamer bit?

Jeebus, I can never find anything. I wonder why?

Ram mount ball on the left for the GPS. Headphone amp in the middle. Radar detector toward the right.

On the flip side is the fuse block.

Here's the wiring undernieth before I put the cover on and add a few more tie wraps.

Here it is with the GPS mount on it.

So, I brought power up from the battery, and I took the windshield auto retract jumper out, and used it as the relay signal. I put in a connector so that I could remove the dash easily.

I had to carve out a chunck of plastic panel to make a groove for the grommet.

Sooooooooo....here's what it looks like so far.

The only minor gripe I have is that the levers touch the handguards on lock-to-lock steering manuvers ... just barely. But remember, I've got bar-backs, so I'm sure if you're running stock bars you'll have troubles.

Went for a quick 70 mile ride today. Sweet!

 

[raclow]

Excellent Work!!!

What happens when it rains with the Amp....quick connect??

 

[spalkin]

The only thing you need now are some stainless steel, sealed pillion bearings! :drinks:

 

[Putts]

What happens when it rains with the Amp....quick connect??

Ummm, good question. At the moment stuff will get wet. This winter I'll work on some sort of 'farkle condom' to keep everything dry.

The only thing you need now are some stainless steel, sealed pillion bearings! :drinks:

I think I've got some relative bearing grease to lube them with.

When will it ever end?

New windshield.

Then a bunch of this shit. I hate soldering.

Now it looks like this underneith.

And like this on top.

That's (LtoR) GPS; 4 channel passive mixer; iRirver MP 3player with headphone amp underneith; radar detector; XM antenna.

Works pretty damn good but for a couple of glitches I'm still working out (got a ground loop somewhere that prevents powering th GPS and headphone amp at the same time; but it works great when the amp is running on batteries).

Looks good on the bike too, methinks.

I'll have 1500 miles to play with it next week, going to Denver for a quick business trip ... very quick.

 

[raclow]

Still a great job......again, I hope you stay out of the rain unless you have come up with a way to disconnect the hard wired items.

Good luck on your 1500 mile trip.

 

[Foxhuntr]

Can't tell from the pictures. Got sliders???

 

[Capt. Bob]

Grounding to the frame has caused some problems with audio.

 

[LAroo]

How are you going to secure all that equipment if you leave you bike in a hotel car park overnight?