There have been a handful of little short-solution problems I’d been putting on the back burner for a while. Front turn signal mounts, a permanent mount for the Igniter Module, a permanent mount for the throttle cable end in the throttle housing, some way to protect the exposed under-seat wiring from getting too close to the rear tire, and a new speedo cable.
Here are the solutions in no particular order:
IGNITER MODULE
I knew exactly where I wanted to mount the Ignitor Module – it fit perfectly between the front seat hoop arms on the underside of the electronics pan. It’s got this rubber “sock” that slipped over a pair of thin metal blades to lock it in place in its original configuration. I wanted to do the same thing, but trying to figure out how to create and solidly mount a pair of new blades in that super-tight space was proving very difficult.
Then it occurred to me that the ‘sock’, being rubber, was flexible and using the ‘blade’ configuration wasn’t exactly vital, and a pair of bolts would do the trick. I picked up a couple of M6 cap bolts and a pair of M6 aluminum spacers. I slipped the spacers in the slots in the sock, clamped the module under the seat and after checking 873 times that clearance would work, I unbolted the M Unit and got it out of the way so I could use those aluminum spacers as drill guides and bored two new holes in the electronics pan. Then grabbed my trusty 4″ bar of 3/16″ steel, cut a length off, pulled the module from underneath the pan and again used those aluminum spacers as guides to drill holes in this new mounting plate.
I then primed and painted the plate, ran the cap bolts down from inside the electronics pan, fit the aluminum spacers in the module’s ‘sock ears’ over the bolts, then slipped the new plate over the bolts, hit them with some thread locker and lock nuts. Somehow I don’t have any photos of the spacers in position in the module sock. Weird. But here’s the underside after the installation:
REAR UNDER-SEAT WIRE TIDYING
The ‘keep the wires from getting into the rear tire’ solution was even simpler – I just used the existing rear fender mounting bolts that were currently unused, cut a strip of steel, drilled a couple holes, primed/painted and installed.
FRONT TURN SIGNAL MOUNTS
The front turn-signal mounts were a little more tricky. I had intended to use the stock mounting hardware, but they don’t work the way modern replacement parts require. The LED torpedo lights I decided to use utilize a threaded M10 hollow rod that bolts both into the turn signal and then acts as a place to thread the wires through a nut that will then bolt onto the inside of the rod holding it onto whatever bracket is being used.
The stock Savage signals have this kind of elaborate setup involving a rubber mount with a thin metal terminal that the light itself bolts to from behind, while the bike-side metal half of this setup inserts into a socket mounted to the front forks and is held in place by a small bolt from the underside of that socket.
There was really no way to re-use that, so I had to improvise. I was mucking about with different methods when my eyes fell upon the leftover chunk of the metal rod I had used for the brace between the rearset brackets. Out of curiosity I checked to see how close it might be to fitting into that socket… and it was a PERFECT fit.
So I just had to figure out how to bore an M10-threadable hole through the center of about 2″ of steel rod. Normally this is something you’d do on a metal lathe and it would be no biggie. Yeah. I don’t have one of those. A little research on whether or not it was possible to do the deed with a mediocre drill press yielded articles ranging from “meh” to “it’ll NEVER work”. Once again, no guts, no glory, and I literally had very little to lose in trying.
I center-punched the ends of four or five lengths of rod I cut, figuring I’d botch at LEAST one, did my absolute best to figure out a solid way to clamp a steel rod vertically into my drill press vise, and began the attempts.
It did take more than one attempt. On a couple occasions the process looked good from the top, but when I finished the bore, it turned out the rod wasn’t perfectly square to the bit and the bottom of the bore was waaaay off center. For both sides, it will definitely not pass close inspection, but you’ll never see it once it’s mounted.
Next step, use an M10 tap to cut some threads a little bit deeper than the hardware on the signal.
There’s a little hole on the underside of that fork mount that as I mentioned above, a small bolt screwed in to hold the thing in place. The hole itself is not threaded, so my hopes of just tightening a bolt through that hole til it wedged my new mount in place wasn’t going to work. I needed a threaded hole of my own.
I tightened the hollow threaded rod on the turn signal in as far as it would go, dropped a rubber washer over it, and screwed my new mount onto the whole thing. I then positioned it where I wanted in the socket and sort-of clamped it in place so I could drill a hole into the underside of my new rods.
It took a sec, but came out nicely.
A couple folks asked why I had the rods extend so far out, why I didn’t just mount them flush to the socket bracket. Two reasons – one, I wanted them far enough out that they were properly visible and clearly showing what direction I intended to turn, and two, the depth of the threaded rod on the turn signals themselves was deep enough that it wouldn’t quite fit flush and give the wires enough room to snake through an offset hole on the inside of the socket.
THROTTLE CABLE MOUNT
The throttle cable mount was, I thought, going to be super simple. Keep in mind that in all cases involving a cable, I was doing my best to work with existing hardware instead of brewing my own new ones. In this case especially, I already knew the length was perfect, it was just a matter of figuring out how to adapt the existing cable ends to the new throttle control.
The new throttle is a single-cable deal, just like the stock one, and it’s got this odd little tensioning screw below the cable port that for the life of me I can’t figure out why you’d want to use it. It literally snugs up to change how easily the throttle will spring back to zero when you let go of it. I didn’t need it and didn’t want it, but figured I’d just use it to run through the hole in the old mounting bracket already on the cable.
But first, I needed to figure out how to get the metal cable sleeve end into the throttle port. The throttle port has a cable adjustor screw that was pretty much the same diameter of the cable sleeve, so I got all cocky and figured I’d use a die cutter to put threads on the sleeve and be able to screw it right in.
The threads cut in pretty easily – I was a -little- worried that the wall of the metal tube wouldn’t be thick enough, but it was fine. I went to install it, but it would NOT screw in. It was baffling. I has used the existing cable length adjustment screw to check thread size and pitch, and was positive that was correct. Remember that i just said it was ‘pretty much the same diameter’? Yeah. “Pretty Much” ain’t “Exactly”. It turns out the outer diameter of that metal tube was just a fraction of a fraction of a millimeter too wide to get into the throttle port. Eesh. The die cuts threads, it doesn’t narrow the outer diameter of whatever it’s cutting in the process.
So, the next trick would be to see if I could slowly shrink the circumference of that tube with a file. I started out ok, the threads I had just cut literally fell off with not a whole lot of filing. Which means it’s a blessing in disguise that my attempt failed. About a half-hour or so later, I had the tube down to size and was able to slip it into the adjuster.
I then just had to get that tension-adjustment screw OUT of the throttle housing. It was one of these setups where they either blunted the end of the screw or put a little blob of solder (or whatever) on the end to keep it from being able to be removed completely. I wasn’t actually able to see what they did due to how it was installed in the housing. I figured if I just tried to essentially unscrew it with extreme prejudice, it would either come out and all would be well, come out but screw up the threads inside the housing, or not come out at all.
I got lucky, and it was version 1. Once it was removed I tried using the old mounting bracket, but the hole didn’t -quite- line up. A little time with the dremel to extend that bracket’s hole a smidge in the right direction, some locking nuts/locktite combination and I had a solidly mounted and perfectly functioning throttle.
And last, but not least,
NEW SPEEDOMETER CABLE
Not a ton to say about this, other than it was necessary. Moving the speedo from inside the tank to up on the bars meant that the stock cable wasn’t long enough. A little poking around on the various bike sites revealed the solution, and was just the ticket length-wise. Really weird thing is I can’t find my order for this cable, and I can’t remember which site I purchased it from. I’ll keep digging and revise this bit when I find it.
Now that all this stuff has been sussed, there are literally THREE THINGS LEFT.
Tail pipe mount, Rear brake cable/light switch, and the seat itself.
This is getting real close to being DONE.