coondude
07-22-2008, 04:17 PM
I have an 85 VT700. While 23 years old, it only has about 30K miles on it. I bought it about 10 years ago for 2.5 kilobux. I have left it stock up to now.
Recently I stuck on a pair of the Kuryakyn
mirrors with embedded amber turn signals (from Chrome World) and
the Kuryakyn LED voltmeter ("battery gauge") direct from K.
Electrically speaking, not too bad an installtion problem - I used the headlight
housing as a junction box because there's already a whole heap o' wires in there.
The voltmeter was a total piece of cake - connect the meter wires to the headlight connector and go for coffee. 40 bucks for a voltmeter seemed like a lot, but it really
puts on a show.
The mirrors have wires for running light, turn signal and ground. I followed the
wiring diagtam in the shop manual but it still took a little experimentation to
get the running light vs. flasher connections right. Also there is a "load balancer"
included if you want to run the LEDs instead of stock turn signals, but I went with
both, so no LB required.
Mechanically, though, the K. mirrors are a bit of a pain, because the
adjusting screws to keep the mirror head ball joint from getting all loosey-goosey
are inside the mirror head housing , which requires disassembly, and getting the adjustment (small Allen head set screw) just right is a good trick. I've put Loc Tite
on the ball joint to see if that helps and the result is a solid "Maybe".
Also the adapters for the VT700 miror stems on the handlebars are a separate piece
that has to be ordered. Right out of the box the mirrors come with adapters for
Harley and a couple of other things.
They look nice, which was the point, I guess. Also I learned a whole lot about the
wiring, which will be useful as I move on to Stage II - adding a light bar. Watch this space!
Recently I stuck on a pair of the Kuryakyn
mirrors with embedded amber turn signals (from Chrome World) and
the Kuryakyn LED voltmeter ("battery gauge") direct from K.
Electrically speaking, not too bad an installtion problem - I used the headlight
housing as a junction box because there's already a whole heap o' wires in there.
The voltmeter was a total piece of cake - connect the meter wires to the headlight connector and go for coffee. 40 bucks for a voltmeter seemed like a lot, but it really
puts on a show.
The mirrors have wires for running light, turn signal and ground. I followed the
wiring diagtam in the shop manual but it still took a little experimentation to
get the running light vs. flasher connections right. Also there is a "load balancer"
included if you want to run the LEDs instead of stock turn signals, but I went with
both, so no LB required.
Mechanically, though, the K. mirrors are a bit of a pain, because the
adjusting screws to keep the mirror head ball joint from getting all loosey-goosey
are inside the mirror head housing , which requires disassembly, and getting the adjustment (small Allen head set screw) just right is a good trick. I've put Loc Tite
on the ball joint to see if that helps and the result is a solid "Maybe".
Also the adapters for the VT700 miror stems on the handlebars are a separate piece
that has to be ordered. Right out of the box the mirrors come with adapters for
Harley and a couple of other things.
They look nice, which was the point, I guess. Also I learned a whole lot about the
wiring, which will be useful as I move on to Stage II - adding a light bar. Watch this space!