Franken Glide

[Eglider05]

I got a little bored this spring and needed a project. I've wanted another RK for several years but couldn't bring myself to let the Glide go as I have so much time and money in it and I don't want 2 bikes. I've been thinking about doing this for a couple of years now. I got some inspiration and advice from someone on another forum who moved his RK speedo to the handlebars next to his tach. I had the same issue as him, I like my gauges in front of my eyes, that's the one thing about my 03 RK I never really got used to coming off a 2000 FLHTC.

I picked up some parts on Ebay and bought some others new. I didn't want to completely lose my other gauges and wanted to avoid switching gas tanks as with paint it would be costly. I picked up a dual gauge holder and indicator lights from a 2005 Dyna Sport (I think). I cut out the RK handlebar cover for the indicator lights. The new gauges I bought are Dakota Digital and they allow the fuel, VM, oil pressure and oil temp wiring to be fed to the gauges and read in windows in the gauges.

My first oh "Potty mouth" moment came when I discovered the DD gauges need 3/8" deeper cups. I had a friend machine a couple of deeper new cups which were then welded to the original bracket (tipped them forward 10 degrees), problem solved. I found a nice thick chrome billet aluminum dash insert, machined it for the key switch. I had to run the switch east/west rather than north/south (as found on RK) in order to hide the screw heads. The insert along with speedo/tach bracket were powder coated to match the paint.

For the wiring I picked up an 05 fairing interconnect harness and modified it to work with these mods. Yeah, I'm a little nuts but I enjoy screwing around with these things.

Rick

Before

[smoserx1]

Looks awesome.  Great job!

[phillyfan]

Real cool right there. Nice plan. Nice work

[IronButt70]

Love the look. Well done.

[jls 64]

 Cool great job.!!!

[koko3052]

 

[Hossamania]

But without the air temp gauge, how are you going to know if you need to wear a jacket?
Nice job, looks good! The front end feels much lighter, I'm sure.

[Eglider05]

But without the air temp gauge, how are you going to know if you need to wear a jacket?
Nice job, looks good! The front end feels much lighter, I'm sure.

The gauges actually have a readout for the air temp (not hooked up) as they were intended to replace the gauges in the fairing. Yep, the front end does feel lighter and that's one of the things I was after. The head unit, BT amp and BT speakers alone were heavier than I expected. I spent all of that money on the stuff and rarely even listened to the thing. The times I did I think I did it out of guilt because of the $$ I had spent on it.

Thanks,
Rick

[Pete_Vit]

But without the air temp gauge, how are you going to know if you need to wear a jacket?
Nice job, looks good! The front end feels much lighter, I'm sure.

nice job indeed !

[Deye76]

Came out great. Where gauges belong IMO. Shouldn't have to physically move your head to read them, like with the traditional tank mount from a different century.

[Eglider05]

Thanks all, it was a fun project. I made it completely reversible with minimal fuss if the desire should ever hit, but I'm betting it won't.

Rick

[Leed]

Really nice!!

[klammer76]

Nice work