More bike modifying

Well it has been a long winter. The transmission has been out and repaired and I still had snow in the yard soooo...

I did notice that the tape deck did not work but that was no big deal. I figure with my luck, trying to change cassettes would just be hi-fi littering.

Hey! let's just remove the deck, no problem, easy solution. It turns out (as usual) that idea was too good to be true. When the deck is removed the radio doesn't work. Sigh....

First step on this journey is to sort out the electrical to the tape deck. A toggle switch takes care power to the radio. At this point I installed an external audio input. Why? because I can. Next was to install a relay that will kill the new audio input, when you listen to the radio.

With the guts of the deck removed and cover installed I now have a cubby hole with a cute flippy lid.

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Next I thought I should mount the GPS on the bike as I am directionaly challenged and cannot cross the street without a good road map.

You can click on some of the pics for a better look.

Note the cool little clamp that I believe was a fuel-line clamp on 5.9L Cummins.

The GPS has a battery life of about 20 minutes and I know it takes me longer than that to get lost in the first place.

I needed to power this thing. (MORE POWER Muhahahaha) But how? It only charges from the USB bus.

If you ignore the data lines on a USB bus and just power it, USB devises will react accodingly, in this case it powers the battery in the GPS or an iPod.

All I need is 5volts DC. A nice little 7805 regulator was scrounged from my prodigious collection and installed.

Info on 7805 regulators here

The usb cable and external input are cleverly disguised as tape deck buttons when no devices are in use.

The teenage daughter let me borrow her iPod for this short test . But then again listen to her music? Not for long.

I may ride an 'almost vintage' bike but there's no reason I have to use pre-millenium technology.

Update: With the daughter not wanting to change the music on her ipod I had to buy myself a shuffle. I wired in a second plug for it.

I also had to widen the hole just a bit for it to lay down under the cover.

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