Tech: Spedometer Plate

When I bought my bike, it was used and the original owner had replaced the stock handle bars with a high rise and drag bar. To mount the speedometer he ground the original upper bar clamp and drilled 2 holes in it so he could bolt it to the new upper bar clamps.

I did not like the way this looked and when riding the bike, the angle of the face of the speedometer did not sit very nicely. I wanted something a little better, so I decided to make a speedometer plate to mount my speedometer to. The old owner had drilled and taped the new upper handle bar clamps, so I decided to start there.

I traced the bottom of the speedometer with a marker on cardboard. Then I cut it out and made adjustments so that it would fit to the back of the speedometer. When I was happy with the fit I traced the cardboard onto a flat piece of aluminum, about 15 or 16 gage. I cut this on my table jig saw and filed the edges until I had a good fit. After that I drilled the holes. 

There is one taped hole on the top of the speedometer housing that I could use for mounting to the new plate but there really wasn't much else to hold it tight so I drilled  two holes and taped them in the housing. Tip: if you bolt the plate and housing together (with the gages removed) you can drill trough both at the same time to have a good location. I used 8-32 button head screws for a low profile look.

After I was done cutting, drilling and filing I sanded and buffed the plate with a cotch brite wheel on a grinder (a sheet of scotch brite and doing it by hand would work) before painting it black.

Here is just the plate mounted.

And with the speedometer mounted.

Can you see the button head screws?

Here is a comparison of the two. The top picture is with the plate and the bottom is the before picture. You can see the angle changes and the speedometer sits lower.

The original mount did hide the speedometer connector. I am not sure what I want to do with this yet, but I'm sure I will post it when it is done. I could shrink wrap it, or make a plate, or machine something to bolt on. I am not sure yet.