Gents;
I own a 1986 R-65. It was my first bike, and given that it is a rather nice machine to ride, hopefully my last bike. Found her in a garage sale with all of 1200 miles on the clock in 1996. The owner bought her new, drove her for one season, and promptly bought a K100... leaving the R-65 to rot in the corner of his garage.
After nearly 15 years of riding and 23,000 miles, the instrument case has disintegrated and cracked to the point of being useless. Not wanting to let moisture and dirt destroy the guts, I took her off the road.
My problem is this: the instrument cluster is no longer available, and I'm not about to pay stupid money for a NOS part that is probably has one foot in the grave away from rotting just like mine.
I'm looking around for a drop-in replacement that either accepts all the stock gauges and lights, or that replaces the whole assembly. So far, no luck. Anyone know of something like this?
I *suspect* that I will have to design my own cluster. I made a quick drawing, fiddled about with a few ideas, and figure that I can make a top half out of some aluminum strip bent into something approaching the original shape, and brazing some aluminum posts in place that can be threaded to accept screws to hold the instruments and lights. The top piece would more than likely be made of three pieces of sheet aluminum, allowing for a sandwich of the meter glass. With a lot of work, it might even look pretty.
My next questions: Has anyone here had this issue with an R-65, and if you found you had to fab your own housing, what were the main issues you ran into?
Thanks much for your input!
