Rainy Sunday Piddlin'

[MrSurly]

I spent my rainy, lazy Sunday fixing a couple of minor electrical bits on the Ultra. The bike had an annoyingly sketchy power socket. Factory installed. Top o' the line. Inherently sketchy. The power outlet in the Tourpak has (for years) been stupid unreliable. I don't use it often and when I do, I'm reminded that whatever you plug into it will randomly have or maybe not have power. I would plug in my phone to charge while I rode and it would be charging when I started and charging when I stopped, but it hadn't charged while riding(!). Wiggle the plug and it would blink. One of those annoying things that was never important enough to chase. Well, I finally got around to it. Took it apart to learn the cause, (surprised by shoddy components) replaced it with a better-built unit, included USB ports, LED indicator and wired it 'hot' all the time.

This is the factory installed power outlet in the Tourpak and it is a really crap design. After seeing it apart, I would strongly advise AGAINST just replacing with a new one of the same source. I'm actually surprised that these aren't causing fires. Anyway, found a much-better-built piece at WalMart which included USBs and power light. I made a little bracket and it looks pretty ok. While in there, I installed the Anderson Tourpak relocator bracket. I had also found (when swapping the battery on Friday) that the 'add-on' wires for some accessory things made battery access a bigger pain, so I spent some time rearranging wires to police the area. Little projects that passed the rainy day perfectly.

This long-put-off but needed repair really started because I had my seat cover repaired.... and when installed after that, it blew a fuse (heated seat). Waiting for the call from the seat guy now.