Mawse’s Caponord Stuff

It was all down to skillful measuring, and the pilot hole was spot on

Next to cut out the hole with hole cutting drill bit (see below) - Make sure you choose one that is just a little bit smaller that you need so you can then file it out to size.

pick a size slightly smaller than the socket

Spend some time getting the hole right, so the socket fits nice snug (i went for almost tight)

What you will have then is something that looks like below.  (but not refitted just yet)

12v take off on right side

The electrical side is really straight forward - Find a supply and connect to the socket.

For the supply (if you are not bothered about it switching off when the ignition is off) I used the fused side of the existing 12v socket.

I cheated a little for the + and spliced a wire into the fuse holder (below)

+ wire showing on the right

I also fitted a waterproof 1A inline fuse just to make double sure that the bike would be safe if anything bad happened.

The ground came from the bolt to the top right of the fuse box holder.  Just in the right spot.

So the ground goes to the outer of the socket and the 12v goes to the pin.  Make sure you get this part the right way round.  On my socket these were crimp connectors, so a quick crimp and the wires were on.

Test to make double sure everything is working as it should.

Refit plastic surround and rubber sheet to the bike.  This I find can be a tad tricky, but a long screwdriver to leaver up the rubber sheet helps.

12v socket on the bike

A final test now its all back in place - there you have it.  A 12v socket on the dash of your Caponord.

socket to the right

Ive had this now for a good 18 months and its been great while away on the bike as I can give the mobile a quick few mins of charge or keep the gps going all day while engine is running.

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The Caponord already has a 12v socket down by your left leg, but this is kinda in the wrong place to get power easily up to a gps, or phone.  So in 2008 I decided to fit another point up near the dials so I could power gps, charge the mobile, etc.   Im a tad behind with updates on this and didnt really take that many photos, but what I have Im posting here.

First things first.

Have a beer! No purchase yourself a nice waterproof 12v socket.  I got mine from a local company (Towsure) for about £2.

Before Id taken off the dash surround I was deciding which side to put the socket.  I finally went for the left side as there were less pipes etc from the handlebars to get in the way.

Time to take off the dash.  This is done by taking out the 7 screws on the surround and then 2 either side at the bottom.  That for me was the easy part.  Getting the plastic surround off and out was tricky as it has a rubber sheet attached at the bottom which goes down over the back of the lights to create a bit of a screen.

With the surround finally removed the socket HAD to go on the RIGHT as behind the left side is a bank of relays

There is enough space at the right side, so a position was found and then a few scary moments as the pilot hole went through the plastic (was it in the right place? was it too high?).

I have to admit, updates have been very few and far between on this blog.  But there is a reason (honest!).  Ive just not been doing much ‘tinkering’ with the old Cap these last few months.

The last thing I did until this weekend was the fitting of a 12v take off point on the ‘dash’ so I could power the old GPS easily, and charge mi phone.  This will be getting a ‘how to’ soon.

Any way this weekend I finally got round to fitting some LED running lights to the engine bars.  The reason for doing this was to make me a bit more visible in dim cloudy weather.  Also to create a triangle of light to draw attention to me (no other vehicle has a triangle of lights on the road).  I decided to do this after reading about light triangles and motorbikes. Read more here….

If you lot out there have any photos of your Cap that you want to see on the blog - just email em to info@dobydog.co.uk and Ill post em up for you.  Then we can all have our 15mins of fame

Just added the Rally Raid extra bits manual into the download section.  This one refers to all the slight differences detween the Raid and the normal Capo.

Cheers

Quick update……

Added a pdf into the download section of the workshop manual for the caponord.  Im sure this will be of use to someone

cheers

Made another file available for download this morning.  If you look in the ‘download’ section there should now be a .pdf for the fitting of heated grips & hazard warning lights.

Not sure if this one will be of much use, but anything is better than nothing I spose

When you first get all the bits out of the box and see the instructions I thought it was an all day job.  But once Id taken a deep breath it turned out to be not that bad at all.

First thing was to take off the fairing - this is held in place by 4 alankey headed screws - 1 at the top, 2 front and one at the bottom (the hole for this one will need drilling out later!)

bike before starting

showing naked side of bike

The first part of the kit to attach is the crossbar that goes at the top of the radiator.  Now this initially sound like a dead easy thing to do.  But as you take the screws out there is a small threaded bit of metal that falls down and makes putting them back in a total pain in the arse! (well it was for me anyway!).

location for crossbar

Once that was fitted it was so straigh forward I forgot to take photos until the final bar was in place.  But the rest involves taking a screw out on the engine, adding a longer bracket and then putting it all back together, ready for the final bar fitting.

lower hole needs drillling out with size 11 drill

The lower hole on the fairing needs drilling out before it re-fit otherwise the new screw assembly just will not fit (by about 2mm!)

Then all thats left to do is tighten the front of the bar to the crossbar and tighten up the lower screw and thats bisically it.  And before you know it………

fitted crash bars

Ive already got a couple of topics that are nearly ready to be posted.

• Fitting engine crashbars - its not hard, but hey thought some photos might be fun
• 12v take off on the dash for GPS/phone/etc

Ill try and get to finish these asap