Hello fellow XL riders.

I have a bit of a quandry, I'm hoping to get some advice from you all.

So, I bought a coil and ignition relocation kit from DK here on the forum. It looks like a nice kit and I was excited to install it.

However, the real reason I wanted to do this, was to get rid of the god awful plastic crap between the tank and the rocker box covers.

What I didn't realize (my mistake entirely) was that those plastic covers don't just hide the ignition and coil wires, they also hide about fifty brightly colored wires, and worse yet...about six large plastic connectors!

So now I'm a bit stuck...I realize I can't fully tuck those wires under the tank without a tank lift, and I *really* do NOT want to lift my tank, because I don't want to lose any tank capacity on an already small tank.

Looking at this, I see that you can tuck the wires under the tank with no lift IF you cut off all the plastic connectors and solder the wires, but I do NOT want to do that and mess up my warranty in case something goes wrong that is over my ability to fix.

So now I'm pretty stuck....

I thought a LOT about this last night and I had an idea but I wanted to run it past you all to see if you thought it was bad idea, or to see if anyone has done this before.

My idea was to remove all the plastic BS hiding the wires, relocate the coils and ignition, and then move the tank out of the way, and wrap all those wires to the frame in black hockey stick tape (still under the frame rail) and then drop the tank back on at its stock height.

Yes, that would still be visible, but if I did the wrap cleanly, I *think* that it would look a lot better than the awful plastic wire hiders that are there now, and I wouldn't have to lift my tank permanently.

Thoughts on this? Has anyone tried this yet? I searched and searched for hours and I couldn't find anyone else who has tried this approach.

If this proves to be a bad idea, or one that I shouldn't even attempt, I think I'm just going to sell the coil and ignition kits here or on Ebay, and forget the entire project.

Thoughts? I'd love to get some advice from others who may have been in the same position, of wanting to clean things up but not wanting to put a 2" lift on the tank that would reduce my capacity by .5 gallons.

 

Ive done the wire tuck without a tank lift and without soldering all the wiring. What you said about the tape is pretty much spot on. I relocated the coil and ignition and then removed all the stuff holding the wiring together and bundled it all together. I then wrapped the wiring bundle as tight as possible and ziptied it to the underside of the backbone. Sat the tank back down and the wiring is pretty much unnoticable.


*One note: On your bike you may not be able to use the ignition relocation part. What'll likely happen is the fuel line coming out the bottom of the tank will hit the new ignition location. If this is the case get with DK. They make a kit to move your keep down by the battery box.

 

I got the coil relocation and the ignition relocation as seperate parts, my ignition will go on the left side behind the rear cylinder, because as you stated, the fuel petcock would have hit the ignition if i put them together.

Thank you so much for your input! Looks like my idea will work (it worked for you, so it should work for me too) after all!

Is your bike EFI (I.e. did you do that to your 2011 48?)? I ask because the carbed models seem to have way less wires under the tank.

 

Yea it's a '11 48 so it's EFI. If Im not mistake all Sportsters from 07 on up are EFI. I was able to use the coil/ignition relocation combo on mine and the only reason why the petcock clears is because the tank is so small. It BARELY clears but it does. Any bigger tank the petcock would hit with this relocation kit. Sounds like youve got the right kit so you should be good to go.

 

That is awesome, I *really* appreciate you taking the time to post here and let me know that this same approach worked for you!!!!

 

Instead of tape, can you use just 1 black wire loom (tube)? Then just zip tie that to the frame up there ?
Now you got me wanting to do this..lol. I didn't know a tank lift would make you get less gas?

 

I thought of that, I'll have to look at wire looms...but the bright colored wires would probably show through if its an open weave type.

As for the gas issue, the fuel petcock is at the midpoint of the tank, so if you lift the tank up at an angel you have two issues:

1) There will be a pocket of fuel at the rear of the tank, below the petcock that can't be drawn into the engine.

2) When you fill up the tank, there will be an even larger pocket of air at the top of the tank that you cannot fill, as the gas level will be that much closer to the fill opening.

 

Im sure wire loom can be used but you'd probably have to disconnect all the plugs and route them through the loom and reconnect everything. The electric tape works well and with the wiring tucked up under the tank it's hardly noticable.

 

They make split looms such as the powerbraid:

http://www.painlessperformance.com/w...rchField=70904

My problem with this is that it would be *excellent* for concealing wires, but not that great for concealing square plastic connectors...those are the things that are really hard to hide inside a wire loom.

Also, I thought to use hockey stick tape because its adhesive doesn't melt and get all soft and crappy over time the way that black electrical tape does, and its designed to hold up to heat and abrasion.


Oh, and what I just noticed: You have the 48 with the peanut tank. It has a lot more room in the frame void under the tank than my 3.3 gal tank has. I can run a few wires up under the tank, but I'll have more that needs to stay on the bottom of the frame rail than you did.

I'm still going to give it a shot....if it looks like its really going to suck, I can always put everything back to where it came from and sell the kits back to someone on Ebay.

 

ARGH!

I'm so torn....I just found a thread on another forum where a guy DID do the tank lift (only 1.5" was enough to get everything tucked away) and his gas light only comes on 10 miles sooner (I could live with that for sure).

Also, since I'm raising my bars up with a riser lift, I wouldn't have to worry about tank clearance issues either.

Look at how good it looks though:

Before:



After: