Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Farkling the F650GS - Round 2

Today was like an early birthday! The F650GS and I got presents!

My ZTechnik windshield arrived from A&S Motorcycles around noon. A few hours later, the Quest RAM cradle and Widder battery hookup showed up from Whitehorse Press. I stayed late at work helping a coworker with a project, but hit the garage as soon as I got home.

The windshield install was super easy.

The unmolested GS with my long-ignored CB350 in the background (yeah, I need to sweep the leaves out):


The windshield kit'o'parts: sheld, u-shaped plastic spacer, screws, washers, and simply! good instructions:


GS sans stock fly-shield (3 screws removed):


New windshield installed. Easy Cheezy!






Sitting on the bike, this windshield is fairly tall. At 5'-4", I'm definitely going to need to keep the windshield clean, but I can easily see over it. I don't think I've had a shield this high since I sold the GL650. I have high hopes for it's effectiveness battling wind at higher speeds.


Next on deck was the RAM cradle for my Quest2 GPS. I'd been toying with the idea of fitting it with conduit hangers (like I did on the R1200ST). In the heat of the moment, I decided to simplify my install (and avoid scrounging through my *boxes of stuff*) by pulling one of the RAM balls off the ST and installing it onto the mirror of the GS. I found a diamond shaped plate with a ball attached in one of my spares boxes, along with a short RAM arm to connect it all to the bike.

Visible in this picture on the left side handlebar is my old Formotion glow-in-the-dark thermometer. I got pissed off at it's unerring inaccuracy last year and removed it from the R1200ST. I've decided to give it another chance.

You can also see the switch for the heated handgrips duct-taped (silver) to the left side of the cockpit. I still haven't made it over to my parent's house for a larger drill bit.

Finally, I connected the Widder vest battery connection to the BlueSea fuse box (clear cover, yellow latch, colorful fuses) that got installed two weeks ago. The F650GS now has full cold-weather capability.

The red line running along the subframe toward the rear of the bike (top-right side of the pic) is the switched wire from the tailight. I'm really trying to keep this install tidy.


If I can get my act together tomorrow morning, I'll give the new windshield a whirl. Watch for a review in the next few weeks.

2 comments:

Rebecca "Squeaky" Nelson said...

Gee, I wonder how all those leaves got in there! LOL

Anonymous said...

I was wondering whether the Ztechnik windshield lowers the noise and you would recommend bying it. Does it enhance the driving experience?

Thanks