I wasn't sure where to post this ..... it's not really electronic, but it is a "gadget," I guess. Anyway, been doing a few mods to the SEUC and ran across these while doing some internet surfing a few days ago. Didn't see anything here talking about them, so thought I'd give one a try. It's an analog oil temp gauge and dipstick from JES Custom Accents (
http://jescustomaccents.com/). From the reviews I read on a few other forums, folks have had good luck with them and find them to be accurate. You can find a link on his website to a Thunder Press review where they checked it against an IR thermometer and found the two to match. He has some other cool stuff on his website, too.
They come in black and white faces for Dynas and Electra Glides (that's according to his website, but the "FL" model should work on a Road Glide, too, I would think). I thought the black would be a better match against the granite motor and the surrounding parts, so I went with that. You can also choose between air or oil-filled, oil filled to prevent fogging. I got an oil-filled one.
There are two plastic pieces, a base that threads in where the factory dipstick otherwise would and then a "wedge" that goes into that. The dipstick/gauge goes into the wedge and is retained with a pin that fits into a slot to lock the gauge in place.
The wedge is held in place with two set screws threaded into the base.
The slot where the pin from the dipstick goes needs to be positioned at the bottom. There are witness marks on both the wedge and the gauge (visible on the side of the gauge in the first pic) that, when aligned, will allow the gauge to be removed to check the oil level. When you do an oil change, you would remove the base and the wedge as a unit, similar to unscrewing the factory dipstick, providing full access to the filler neck.
Installed:
From a little further back:
I just got it and installed it a couple nights ago and haven't put any miles on the bike yet, but thought I'd go ahead and post these pics, anyway. Sitting on the bike in the garage, it seems like a fairly easy glance down between the tank and your right leg to catch a quick reading. Indexing the gauge so that, say, 250* is at the "top" or some other readily identifiable location, should make it even easier to steal a glimpse of it while riding. At a stoplight, which is when the heat would really be on, getting a look at it would be even easier. And the nice thing is there are no buttons to push, first.
I think if/when the bike is ever at the dealer, I would take the 2 minutes and re-install the stock dipstick. If you're not familiar with the operation of this piece, I think you could easily F it up.
It was $140 delivered and seems like a well-made piece. Sounds like the guy, Joseph E. Stewart, and company have been around for awhile and has a George Anderson-like reputation for made in the USA products and similar customer service. Harley doesn't make a titanium dash gauge yet and I've already had my share of bad luck with the Harley LCD temp dipsticks, so figured this would at least be a conversation piece from time-to-time and, at best, be able to keep tabs on what the big, bad, hot 110 is running for temps.
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Topic: An Alternative to the H-D Temp Dipstick (Read 14395 times)