Fire Her Up

I connected everything and got her to run!  Note that in addition to having to connect and reconnect a zillion wires, the engine had not been ran and had been sitting in the garage (all fluids drained) for 4 1/2 years!!

Despite all that, it ran later.  Just took a little time to get everything going.  Now I need to get a real battery mounted and wired in.  Also need to make sure the throttle is working right - seemed  a little stiff today.

Radiator Plumbing

Pre-note:  If the guy (Anthony) that I bought the body from sees this, please comment or email me; I lost your email address. (but I guess if you do see this, you see that after 4.5 years I'm finally getting close!)

After me and wifey put the body on, and off, and on, and off, etc. many times, I got the cooling system hoses measured and cut to length.  It is VERY tight quarters up front where the radiator, heater core, and headlights mount - I'll try to take a picture.  I removed the headlight bucket to paint it since you really can't remove it with the radiator installed unless you have 3" (dia.) arms and are very flexible.  Also got the throttle cable installed with and extra return spring to ensure throttle closes when you're off the petal.  Going to install  the headlight bucket, radiator, and all hoses next.  Then bolt down the body to the frame and install the steering column and wheel.  Here's a short video and some pics:

By "Fill everything up" at the end, I mean oil, coolant, gas, brake fluid.

 Above is the painted headlight bucket (hanging while it dries).  Below is where it goes.  You cans see the heater core connections, as well as the headlight wiring, linkages, and down stops.

 Above is a view of the front end where the radiator goes; below is a closeup.  You can see the hoses that connect to the radiator (the heater core out connects to the bottom of the radiator where the return hose connects.  These pictures really do not do justice to how tight it is).   You can also see the horn on the right.

 The next two pictures below show the wiring that need to be connected - mainly just plugged together and screw down some ground wires, but it is still a lot of connections.

The picture above shows where I am going to relocate the battery. I still need to make a the battery tray and then attach it to the blue frame between the engine and the body.

Cockpit Finished

I've gotten all the wiring done for the front body, as well as mounting the cruise control unit.  I also moved the front body over on top of the frame to finalize the wiring and the plumbing for the radiator.  Here's the video:

Headlight Wiring Info

I found out that my Voyager XII headlight (not sealed beam)  is wired differently than the two sealed beam automotive headlights (2A1 - about 4.5"x6") that the RT uses.  I also discovered (after wasting an hour searching) that all the info I found on the internet was wrong, so I wanted to post what I learn by experimenting with the headlights by energizing them in a dark shop and observing the patterns - hi beam was higher and to the left, lo beam had a more distinctive cutoff at the top of its throw.

The back of the headlights look like this (both are oriented correctly (top is up)).  Motorcycle headlight is on the right:

(The big cable coming out of the MC headlight goes to a knob that was used to raise or lower the light on the fly based on the load you were carrying on the bike.)

Each light has three terminals; two across from each other and third between them to one side.  If you added another across from the third the four would make a square.  The same plug fits both, but they are wired differently.

The auto light has three terminals, right, left, and bottom that are configured as follows:
Right = Lo beam
Left = Ground
Bottom =Hi beam

The Kawasaki Voyager XII light has three terminals, right, left, and top that are configured as follows:

Right = Hi beam
Left = Ground
Top =Lo beam

Finished Dash & Controls

Dash Out of Vehicle

I had to pull the dash out to weld in the passenger side "glove box" which is really a shelf made of expanded metal.  That gave me a chance to easily paint it torque and lock-tite the brake bolts, and finish mounting the speedo gearbox and cables.  Here's some pictures:

 Yes, the speedo cable is held to the gearbox with zip ties.  The threads on the cable fitting fit over (without engaging) the gearbox and all the ties do is keep it from falling out. Good enough to keep the square end of the cable engaged with the gearbox.  There is a 2 inch piece of square drive between the gearbox and the instrument cluster to drive it on that side.  I fabricated it out of the motorcycle speedo cable with a little extra braze to square off the cut end.  I got the gear box from Surplus Center for a few bucks; its 2.5 to 1 which is within about 10% of what I needed to get the speedo to read right.  I plan on using a GPS for actual speed.  I hooked up the speedo so it looks better when driving and to allow the cruise and self-canceling signals to work of the distance sensor (which is just behind the gearbox on the top of the speedo.

Parking Brake

In a earlier post, I promised some better picture of how the parking brake (fab'ed from a bar clamp) worked.  Here they are:

 This one (above) shows the brake engaged.  The clamp, mounted under the frame (with the orange button), prevents the bar from releasing the brake pedal until the orange button is pushed.  I made a small bracket to hold the bar up out of the way when not in use.  The two upward pointing tangs above and to the left of where the clamp mounts to the dash were added to mount the ignition switch.

 Above shows the parking brake in the stowed position.

 Another few pictures of the parking brake. In the one above you can see the bracket that holds it up when stowed.   Also near the top of the pedal you can see where I mounted the the front brake light and cruise cancel switches.  Its black and you can see the shiny mounting bolt on its bottom edge.  It was quite challenging to fabricate the bracket to hold this switch just right to get both switches to actuate when you want them to and to get in there to mount it.

All Those Wires!

There are a lot more wires than you might think that needed to be extended and routed from the dash back to motorcycle wiring harness.  So far, I think I've added about 400 feet of wire!

Here's only some of the mess before putting it into conduit:

 and on the floor: (the silver cable is the throttle cable)

 Below is the extension wires for the right grip controls being prepped for soldering in.

 Below shows the extended wires for the radiator cooling fan and the temperature sensor.

Throttle Cable Brackets

The throttle cable will run unsheathed from the front of the frame to the back.

Below is a close up of the rear bracket.

 And here is the front bracket.  (The hoses you see are for the radiator)

Finished Cockpit Wiring

Here are the wires neatly in the flexible conduit which runs down the passenger side.  Just putting all of them in the conduit took nearly an hour.

 Above shows the dash installed with all of the control's mounted (except for the steering wheel).  Not installed is the shroud for the instrument cluster and the dash cover that sits just above the instruments to hide all the wires, brakes, and such.  Below shows the wires exiting the back of the passenger's side of the cockpit, just waiting to be plugged into the motorcycle wiring harness.

This weekend I plan on finishing the throttle cable work, relocating the cruise control unit on the frame, and maybe getting around to suspending the front body (cockpit) slightly above the frame to figure out how to run the radiator hoses and make the final connections.