wanting to swap to digital gauges

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donniebnd
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Re: wanting to swap to digital gauges

#1

Post by donniebnd »

I have a 78 gl1000, I'm wanting to swap out the three gauges on the tank over to digital ones, any idea's?
They are the fuel, temp, volt gauges.
Thanks Donnie
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pidjones
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Re: wanting to swap to digital gauges

#2

Post by pidjones »

Volts-easy. Readily available gauges just need a little spacing around to center and work great. Make sure you connect to 12 volts, not the 7 volts for the other gauges. Temperature - a little harder. You need to spin an adapter from the sensor supplied with the gauge to the manifold. The hardest part for me was pulling tye old sensor and installing new without fully pulling the carb rack. And then, I discovered that the cheap Chinabay system is wildly inaccurate. But it looks nice and digital. An LED bar graph fuel level gauge is something that I'm still working on, but many other things are much more pressing.

But, do the voltmeter - use red. Much better than the slow bimetallic gauge Honda supplied. Alerted me to a failing regulator on my '79, so ver glad to also have one on the '78 with Dyna ignition.
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cfairweather
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Re: wanting to swap to digital gauges

#3

Post by cfairweather »

I did a custom 1977 GL1000 last year and installed a 4-in-1 marine gauge into the hole where the fuel gauge is located. I had to make the hole bigger and remove some metal underneath, but it worked out great. I just found and bought this gauge that is similar to the one I last used and I think it might work ok.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/295050364364?h ... R8zCi7XWYA
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Sidecar Bob
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Re: wanting to swap to digital gauges

#4

Post by Sidecar Bob »

I would never discourage anyone from changing to better instruments and that (in theory) a digital meter will be more accurate but keep in mind that you need to take your eyes off the road long enough to actually read the numbers while you can tell at a glance if the needle of a gauge is in approximately the right place.

If you are going to upgrade those meters I would encourage you to consider upgrading all of the instrumentation while you are at it. I went with a Danmoto 180 instrument that includes speedo, odo, fuel and temp gauges. As you can see in the pic below the Danmoto is small enough that this left room for a speaker box with room for a voltmeter.
Mine is an 1100 so I didn't have holes in the shelter lid to deal with but you could mount a voltmeter and clock and maybe a charging port in the holes
Image

Unfortunately Danmoto no longer sells their instrument panels but there are a number of other electronic instruments available.
Mr. Honda ('83 GL1100/Dnepr) summer How a motorcycle evolves thread
The Famous Eccles ('84 CX650EI/VeloUral) winter Never Ending Build (CX500forum)
Click: Colour schematics for all GL1000 & GL1100 and GL1200 standard models plus instructions on how to download the full size version
"A guy with two sidecars can't be all bad." - Cookie
Another guy with two sidecars..... Hmmmm... must be something to that....
redglbx
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Re: wanting to swap to digital gauges

#5

Post by redglbx »

The only thing I would add is to keep in mind that there is a voltage drop in the system at most all power points that are 1-2 volts less than actual battery voltage. I just went through this on my 76 where I had a digital voltmeter that I tapped from the headlight circuit, it displayed 1-1.5v less than the actual battery voltage. I ended up tapping into a switched relay that I use to supply power to my high output cooling fan. Now it is exactly the same display as the battery.

I spent a great deal of time going through the wiring harness and really didn’t find anything that actually matched the battery. I also redid my Dyna hookup source for the same reason. I ended up adding a relay that I sourced the switching power from the coil power lead and used it to turn Full battery voltage on/off, I also found the original source was a switched supply that shut off power to the Dyna when cranking (bad), totally surprised that the bike started as easily as it did. Plus now it gets full battery voltage when running AND cranking, it starts really easy now, unbelievably easy starting now even when cold with no choke.

The previous supply voltage fluctuated when running by up to 2volts, particularly when idling, I seen it dip to as low as 10.2v, but generally ran right at 12v but not really higher than that.

So the moral here is to choose your Dyna supply carefully and then monitor it to see how it fluctuates, The Dyna recommendeduse of using the turn signal power is at best very poor.
Red 1976 oe owner
1976 LTD restored
1980 CBX , in the que, to fix the ignorant heavy handed owner
1981 CBX
1977 CB750 K7
2014 FJR OE owner, sold
1980 GL1100
1984 GL1200 naked
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Sidecar Bob
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Re: wanting to swap to digital gauges

#6

Post by Sidecar Bob »

That's a high current circuit so accumulated small resistances between the battery and the meter can drop a significant voltage.

Because the keyswitch and the voltmeter on my 'Wing are in that speaker/wiring box I could connect the meter to the black wire at the keyswitch, which is the closest you can get to the battery without drawing current all the time. It reads so close to the same as the battery that it doesn't make any difference.

The only place I could put the (identical) meter on my CX is in the fairing. The only wires in there that are live when the key is on are the headlight circuit and the power to the stereo and handlebar heaters so I connected it with the stereo. For a long time I thought the alternator couldn't keep up with the normal load plus the sidecar headlight, handlebar heaters & stereo because the meter read lower with each thing I turned on and gradually dropped the longer everything was on so on a few long, cold rides home at night I turned the heaters & stereo off to keep the voltage from dropping too low.
One day I was troubleshooting something and noticed that the voltage at the fairing was as much as 2V lower than at the battery! I eventually figured out that more than half of that difference was in the ground circuit so I made some improvements that helped a lot and now the meter always reads above 12V with everything on so I don't risk frostbite in fear of the battery dying frosty1
Mr. Honda ('83 GL1100/Dnepr) summer How a motorcycle evolves thread
The Famous Eccles ('84 CX650EI/VeloUral) winter Never Ending Build (CX500forum)
Click: Colour schematics for all GL1000 & GL1100 and GL1200 standard models plus instructions on how to download the full size version
"A guy with two sidecars can't be all bad." - Cookie
Another guy with two sidecars..... Hmmmm... must be something to that....
redglbx
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Re: wanting to swap to digital gauges

#7

Post by redglbx »

Thanks Bob, now that you mention the ground thing I remember this discussion awhile ago about the grounds, so maybe another day of going over all the grounds may be in order. I was truly surprised that none of the circuits ( all) actually matched the battery. Running full battery voltage to the Dyna should show an improved result, and actually having power to the Dyna while cranking 🙄🙄🤔 should make it start better. I do believe that the light “chuffing” I’ve been having at idle will probably be gone. It only happens at idle and all the things I’ve done to fix/improve the ignition have all made it much better but it’s not completely gone but I think it will be now,,,, we’ll see.

Truthfully my bike really started quite well even with no voltage to the Dyna while cranking, just surprising !
Red 1976 oe owner
1976 LTD restored
1980 CBX , in the que, to fix the ignorant heavy handed owner
1981 CBX
1977 CB750 K7
2014 FJR OE owner, sold
1980 GL1100
1984 GL1200 naked
1969 CL350, in the que
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Sidecar Bob
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Joined: Sun Jun 11, 2006 10:14 pm
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Re: wanting to swap to digital gauges

#8

Post by Sidecar Bob »

If you measure the voltage between battery negative and the meter's negative terminal and the voltage between battery positive and the meter's positive terminal you will see where the problem is.
FWIW, in spite of sitting outside for 6 years before I got it and 25 years of me using it my 'Wing has had an easy life compared to my CX. That one was rescued from a kit who was trying to use it as a "field bike" with no air in the suspension, no oil in the final drive and no coolant and then I set it up to pull a sidecar on salted roads all winter (about 10 years in when I found out the meter was reading low).
Re the Dyna, Whoever decided they should recommend connecting something like that to the brake light circuit didn't know what they were doing. I would power it directly to main switched power via the black wire at the ballast resistor.
Mr. Honda ('83 GL1100/Dnepr) summer How a motorcycle evolves thread
The Famous Eccles ('84 CX650EI/VeloUral) winter Never Ending Build (CX500forum)
Click: Colour schematics for all GL1000 & GL1100 and GL1200 standard models plus instructions on how to download the full size version
"A guy with two sidecars can't be all bad." - Cookie
Another guy with two sidecars..... Hmmmm... must be something to that....
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