I've been riding back and forth to work quite a bit lately. The Auxiliary lights wired through the headlight switch works great! I took the left side cover off again and attempted to fix the small oil leak that I had. The surgery might have been a success, the oil leak has greatly diminished and may have stopped all together. Another couple hundred miles and I will see if it starts leaking again. This coming week looks like it will be excellent riding weather with a couple of days in the upper 80's. I have also updated the links section to the right, deleted a couple of broken links and added a few. One of the links I added is from a friend of mine in Knoxville, Tennessee. His Screen name is DaveTn, AKA "The Burger Meister". Check out his blog... Ride safe!

Is seems that the place where I mounted the switch for the auxiliary lights on the Yamaha Vision was in such a place that I could not turn them off fast enough when faced with oncoming traffic, especially with gloved hands.

I went and rewired the auxiliary lights through the High Beam switch and eliminated the separate switch all together. I studied the electrical schematic for the Yamaha Vision and found that the yellow wire running from the high beam switch on the left handle bar runs from the switch to the headlight and then back to the high beam indicator light under the speedometer. Unfortunately, the indicator light has a low voltage draw to illuminate the blue indicator lamp. I devised a simple solution...

Throw a relay into the mix and things should work great (and the relay costs less than $3.00). The four prong relay was exceptionally easy to install. One of the prongs goes to ground, one gets spliced to the yellow wire between the headlight and the blue indicator light, one prong get attached to the positive side of the battery and the last prong goes to the "hot" side of the auxiliary lighting circuit. The negative side of the auxiliary lighting circuit is already attached to a ground from the initial installation.

Let's see... Turn the ignition on, check. Start the bike, check. Switch the headlight from low beam to high beam, headlight goes to high beam and.... the auxiliary lights come on, perfectly! Total time to rewire the auxiliary lights through the headlight switch, 15 minutes. Time to go for a ride!

Labels: Electrical

Kudos to the Franklin County Tourism Office, The Franklin County Chamber of Commerce and The Smith Mountain Lake Chamber of Commerce for promoting motorcycling on their summer Visitor's Guide and Vacation Planner, "Build Your Weekend".

In the "Build Your Weekend" brochure from Franklin County, they write: "Outdoor Adventure at its best, is what you will find in Franklin County. You can enjoy everything from the scenic view of the Blue Ridge Parkway to the adrenaline rush of surging down rapids on the Blackwater River. Take in a relaxing afternoon on Smith Mountain Lake, or get your heart pumping on the back of a motorcycle heading down a mountainous road." Elsewhere in the brochure they continue with: "The varying terrain allows for all types of activities including, hiking, biking, camping, fishing, hunting, golfing, horseback riding, and motorcycling. The rolling foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Franklin County are an ideal setting for cyclists and motorcyclists seeking country backroads with scenic views."

Congrats for positively promiting the image of motorcycling.

Labels: Image