Well I thought since I went through the trouble of installing a 12V outlet on my bike's front fairing I'd do a post on how I did it. First off I found someone on the FZ6 forum who had a link to this site.
I used all the same materials he did and followed it pretty close. The hard part was figuring out where to put the thing. I wanted to put it in the little vertical triangular area right below the mirror on the inside of the fairing, but after doing some unscientific measuring I figured it might not fit and didn't want to risk cutting a whole there just to find it wouldn't work. Here is a pic of the finished product so you can see where I ended up putting it:
So to start I removed the two panels on the inside of the fairing:
If you don't know how to remove them, the owner's manual has instructions. I then removed the two hex screws at the front of the gas tank and propped it up with a cardboard box so I'd have room to route the wires around.
In the write up that I linked to above, he had his own way of creating a proper sized hole. I used a hole saw that I happened to have on hand from creating a kegerator that oddly was the exact size of the plug.
Once that was done I just had to route the wires. I started by running them through the hole at the front and top of the frame underneath the handlebars:
Then I routed them around on the left side of the bike, along the frame rail that leads right under the seat:
After I routed the positive and ground wires (they're the same color wire, but I wrapped the ends of the ground with black tape so I wouldn't confuse myself) up to the battery and attached my fuse and cut the wires to length and put ring terminals on it looked like this:
That was pretty much it. After I was done I tested it out and it works great. Since then I've added a circuit bar that's fed off a relay and connected the outlet to that because my battery terminals were getting awfully crowded what with my heated vest, battery tender, and as soon as I get them, my heated grips and radar detector hardwire kit. If you're concerned about handlebar clearance with something plugged in, this should help:
Well I hope that makes sense to anyone wanting to try this. If you have any questions, or any suggestions/improvements, let me know. All I know is it comes in handy, and everyone who's seen it thinks it's stock which is the best complement I could get. I was pretty nervous cutting a hole in my new baby, particularly since that fairing piece isn't perfectly flat, but the rubber gasket on this particular marine rated plug compensates for the slight curve.
I used all the same materials he did and followed it pretty close. The hard part was figuring out where to put the thing. I wanted to put it in the little vertical triangular area right below the mirror on the inside of the fairing, but after doing some unscientific measuring I figured it might not fit and didn't want to risk cutting a whole there just to find it wouldn't work. Here is a pic of the finished product so you can see where I ended up putting it:
So to start I removed the two panels on the inside of the fairing:
If you don't know how to remove them, the owner's manual has instructions. I then removed the two hex screws at the front of the gas tank and propped it up with a cardboard box so I'd have room to route the wires around.
In the write up that I linked to above, he had his own way of creating a proper sized hole. I used a hole saw that I happened to have on hand from creating a kegerator that oddly was the exact size of the plug.
Once that was done I just had to route the wires. I started by running them through the hole at the front and top of the frame underneath the handlebars:
Then I routed them around on the left side of the bike, along the frame rail that leads right under the seat:
After I routed the positive and ground wires (they're the same color wire, but I wrapped the ends of the ground with black tape so I wouldn't confuse myself) up to the battery and attached my fuse and cut the wires to length and put ring terminals on it looked like this:
That was pretty much it. After I was done I tested it out and it works great. Since then I've added a circuit bar that's fed off a relay and connected the outlet to that because my battery terminals were getting awfully crowded what with my heated vest, battery tender, and as soon as I get them, my heated grips and radar detector hardwire kit. If you're concerned about handlebar clearance with something plugged in, this should help:
Well I hope that makes sense to anyone wanting to try this. If you have any questions, or any suggestions/improvements, let me know. All I know is it comes in handy, and everyone who's seen it thinks it's stock which is the best complement I could get. I was pretty nervous cutting a hole in my new baby, particularly since that fairing piece isn't perfectly flat, but the rubber gasket on this particular marine rated plug compensates for the slight curve.
