Replaced my tach, speedo, and instrument lights... Ended up having to replace my tach

[Zoodles95]

As you can see no working lights in the tach.



First off I had to remove the reflectors and the headlight assembly.






Then I had to remove the tach and speedo cables etc.



Unhook the headlight and instrument couplers.








I replaced all of the bulbs with new ones I got. They are a little larger than the old ones but are 12V and 3.4W.




Got it all apart and ultimately back together.






And yes, I do have lights working now.



However, once I reconnected my speedo and tach cables they did not work. I




So, I tried everything I could to see what the heck was going on. Tach cable was fine and the tach just would not work.

So, ended up buying a used cluster from ebay.
url=http://zoodles95.smugmug.com/Other/Starter-Clutch/31490889_LXw7Lm#!i=2790626702&k=xd9dDwP&lb=1&s=A]

[/url]


Removed the tachometer from the cluster.




When I hooked up the replacement tach it worked right away. Something obviously went awry with the original tach on my bike when I removed it and reinstalled it on my bike. Now all my bulbs have been replaced and the bike is back together.


Click on the video to see the working tach in action.

 

[hpvchewy]

Click on the video to see the working tach in action.

Thanks for the video

My friend crashed his 09 ZX6R in a field and originally nobody could find his gauge cluster!! We went back about 2 weeks later and did a grid search for it and we found it! It was COMPLETELY full of water and mud. When we picked it up it drained out of the electrical connector on the back for a good minute and a half He drained it, disassembled it, dried it and coated the insides in WD40 to displace the moisture. Re-assembled it and we tried it on the bike tonight and AMAZING, everything works flawlessly. Speedo, tach, trip odo, etc. lol.

The problem with your tach is wacky, but glad that you were able to get it all going!

 

[silverbullet132]

Thanks for the video

My friend crashed his 09 ZX6R in a field and originally nobody could find his gauge cluster!! We went back about 2 weeks later and did a grid search for it and we found it! It was COMPLETELY full of water and mud. When we picked it up it drained out of the electrical connector on the back for a good minute and a half He drained it, disassembled it, dried it and coated the insides in WD40 to displace the moisture. Re-assembled it and we tried it on the bike tonight and AMAZING, everything works flawlessly. Speedo, tach, trip odo, etc. lol.

The problem with your tach is wacky, but glad that you were able to get it all going!

That's nuts, surprised it worked! haha

 

[Zoodles95]

Not sure what the deal is with the original tach. Do I bite the bullet and crack into it over the off season and see if I can see what happened with it?

The only bummer from this project is that the "new" tach has a bit of a patina to the needle so the needle is not as white as the original and consequently not as white as the needle on the original speedo. I guess I could put the imperial speedo on the bike that came with the cluster I bought.

Nah... I will stick with good old metric...

 

[hpvchewy]

That's nuts, surprised it worked! haha

Us as well!! I think the trick was there was no power going to it when it got wet (detached clean from bike on wipeout/impact with the ditch), so that saved the electronics. And making sure it was good and dry before powering it up again (never would have thought of the WD40 trick myself!). The bike gets its first post crash ride/spanking at the track on Saturday (TMP), so we'll see how it holds up (bike plus dash cluster)

 

[Zoodles95]

Next project might be to replace ALL of the lights with LEDS. Would reduce the load on the old school charging system by a decent amount. A good number of guys on the CB 750 forum I am on have done this to their bikes. Apparently it is a real PITA to do the signals. Even if I just did the instrument lights, plus headlight and tail light that would reduce a decent amount of load and I would have more juice to have a better spark at high RPMS.

Now to research which bulbs to get.

This website seems to be popular with the CB 750 guys:
http://www.superbrightleds.com/cat/motorcycle/

 

[silverbullet132]

Next project might be to replace ALL of the lights with LEDS. Would reduce the load on the old school charging system by a decent amount. A good number of guys on the CB 750 forum I am on have done this to their bikes. Apparently it is a real PITA to do the signals. Even if I just did the instrument lights, plus headlight and tail light that would reduce a decent amount of load and I would have more juice to have a better spark at high RPMS.

Now to research which bulbs to get.

This website seems to be popular with the CB 750 guys:
http://www.superbrightleds.com/cat/motorcycle/

Those guys are expensive, you can get 10 LED's on ebay for the price of 1 from there sometimes. That is what I did for my VFR and it turned out really well.

As far as the signals go you can probably get a new digital relay from Royal Distributing and that should take care of the signals.

 

[Zoodles95]

Those guys are expensive, you can get 10 LED's on ebay for the price of 1 from there sometimes. That is what I did for my VFR and it turned out really well.

As far as the signals go you can probably get a new digital relay from Royal Distributing and that should take care of the signals.

Cool, thanks for the info.

I will do some ebay research then. Will probably make this a winter project and try to have it done for the spring.

 

[hpvchewy]

As far as the signals go you can probably get a new digital relay from Royal Distributing and that should take care of the signals.

Yep, $20 at Royal, universal, works on any bike. If you have an extra wire on the digital relay it's just a ground wire, ground it to battery or frame (separate ground from any of the signal wires though).

 

[nomad_man]

I bet you just a solder joint being loose, easy fix.