According to Benjamin Franklin, “It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.” I suppose that may not always be so as I’ve been pretty miserable at some jobs, and very happy since I’ve been (sort of) retired. But I needed a lead-in and Ol’ Benjie seemed as good a candidate as any.
Anyway, the point of all that was that I like doing ‘stuff’ and can get a mite crotchety when I am loose ends for any length of time. So the missus likes me to be busy, as evidenced by the length of the ‘honey do’ list, which I tend to treat as suggestions rather than directions, but that’s another story.
It’s January. The weather sucks! I’ve read a book a week for the last month and it’s time for some other distraction. Enter eBay!
There aren’t many things I don’t like about my Dyna; it’s a good fit for my type of riding (at least most of it) and I haven’t won a lottery lately, so it fits the budget. But it’s not perfect, and one of the things that has been an irritant since I bought it is the location of the ignition switch, down on the side of the steering head where the key ring rattles around, scuffs the paint, and threatens to pull the key out at any time. It’s also awkward. I much prefer the tank-top location of the Wide Glide and other H-D models, so for the past couple of years I have been on the lookout for used parts to do the conversion. (It would be cheaper to upgrade to a Road King or Softail than pay the H-D prices for new components.)
So there I was, bored, cruising eBay when I came across the critical hardest-to-find part for the conversion – a brand new, still in the shrink wrap, dash panel to house the ignition switch. It was like Christmas all over again, just two weeks later. So I placed the order and it arrived today!
Of course this is just the start. I still need an ignition switch, a new steering lock, and top bar clamp. Since I lose my tachometer I also have to decide whether to replace the speedo with a speedo/tach combination (expensive) or just go with a bar-mount tachometer. And then I’ll need to find a few days to pull it all apart, reroute/lengthen/shorten all the connecting wires for the switch, the idiot lights, and the speedo, and do most of it a second time to fix the inevitable screw-ups. Going to be fun!
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