I managed to get the bike put back together a few days before we left and put 150 miles on it so I figured it was as good as new and went for it. The trip was 2350 miles total. We spent 5 days on the road. It should have been 4 days but we stopped a few hours from home due to the weather and not actually being in that much of a hurry.

First day we didn’t make good time. I had a flat when the new back tire I put on the day before decided to come apart. We eventually got it to a gas station with the help of some nice people where we called around and asked about getting a tire. The closest place was a Harley Davidson shop in Wytheville. I called them and they said they have nothing that will fit a jap bike and to go away. So I figure I would never buy anything from a place that retarded and called someone else. I called Mark 4 Honda and they said come right on over and they will make something work for me one way or another to keep us on the road. So after getting the bike hauled there by a nice preacher guy, they had it fixed in about 30 minutes with a new tire and tube. Can’t beat service like that. It was even reasonably priced.

The rest of the day went without problems and we made it to about 30 miles from the Florida border before calling it a day.

Day 2

Made it to Key west about 9:30. Going through Florida I noticed one thing that wasn’t quite right with my bike. When holding a constant speed over 80mph or so it would get oil all over the air filter and run all over everything on the back of the bike after dripping out of the air box. The crankcase vent hose was not put back in properly. I was supposed to run it up under the gas tank then down to the air box. I couldn’t remember what hose it was when putting the bike back together so I used the wrong hose and ran a short hose straight to the airbox from the crankcase. So any fast engine speed will spray oil up that hose and into the air box and make a mess. It was not a problem anywhere except Florida since normal speed there seems to be about 90. It was easier to just add oil every now and then and wait and fix it later. So I just tossed a few bottles of oil in the saddle bags and kept going.

Day 3

We are doing the tourist type stuff this day. Other than the valve core on my front tire is bad and it started to leak air on me. I didn’t know what was wrong with it at the time so I just replaced the tube. I kept the old one for a spare.

This picture of Fred the cat is not blurry. He is 23 years old so he is just a bit blurry himself

Day 4-6

Heading back home. Not much interesting happened. Just lots of miles and hours passing on the bike.

Someone left some panties hanging on the bikes parked at the hotel over night. I guess there is a secret admirer out there somewhere…

The map of states my bike has been in is getting pretty full now.

At least it isn’t a huge deal to fix it. Just annoying I have to wait a week for parts to show up before I can ride again.

Edit

here is a picture showing the gear and the surface of the break. The silver parts are apparently the only parts that were holding the gear together. The darker parts of the break are aged and you can clearly see it was probably cast that way and has been cracked since the bike was new. Good thing it decided to break close to home while I was pulling out from a stop. If it would have broke while going 60mph it probably would have destroyed the motor and made me crash.

The brackets are made out of 1 inch square tubing. To make a set for yourself you need 3ft or so of square tubing and 4 new bolts and nuts. I cut it out and drilled the holes. I used a plasma cutter to cut it out but anything would work even a hacksaw.

Those brackets are not painted in the picture but it shows exactly how I cut them. I just put them beside the factory bolts and marked where to make my cuts and cut them out. I test fit them to make sure it all worked before painting them and bolting them down. Here is the finished result

The seat is much more comfortable now. I will repaint the brackets once I get some tan spray paint but for now it will do just fine.

I started by getting a battery isolator from Amazon.It is a pretty simple device and was not as hard to wire up as it looks from the instructions. The factory alternator is either 100 or 105 Amp so the regulator listed here is a good one for the job. I also needed about 25ft of 8 gauge wire and assorted crimp on connectors.

I also picked up a deep cycle marine battery and case from Walmart. On my van there was an old battery powered vacuum cleaner that didn’t work and I had no interest in fixing. I have left it there for the entire time I have owned the van just taking up space. I figured that would be a good spot for the battery to mount. I took the vacuum out and cut the hole out bigger by going straight down from the existing hole. I will make a wooden box and stain it to match the existing wood later to make it look nice.

With the battery mount figured out I had to drill a hole through the floor and run the wire to the front. I just grounded the battery to a hole already in the support panel behind the tail light. I crossed the wire over to the drivers side behind the transmission to keep the wire away from the catalytic converter. The only place I could find to mount the isolator was be side the battery tray. I just had to move one bracket that held the starter wire in position and I was set to mount it. Wiring it is straightforward just follow the directions for the Delcotron CS-D alternators. To find the S wire location look on the back of the alternator and the connections are labeled there. Take the existing charging wire off the alternator and tape it up out of the way good so it doesn’t short out. Run a new charging wire over to the isolator as the instructions show. The original wire runs down to the starter and is inside the harness so it is impossible to use it without a lot of work.

Now that the battery was hooked up and could be charged it was time to move some of the stock circuits over to it. The easiest thing was the add on panel from the conversion company had a separate power line going out to the battery. It had a relay built on the panel so it would come on when the key was in the ‘accessory’ or ‘on’ position. I just had to take that power wire and connect it to the isolator post that went to the second battery. That moved the TV and conversion lights over to the new battery. I also moved the power windows, radio, and dome lights over to the new battery. for the radio, it was easiest to just unbolt the fuse panel and cut the brown wire that feeds the radio and all other accessory circuits. I then attached it to the relay on the addon panel so they would come on when that relay was energized. For the power windows and dome light I pulled the fuse out of the panel and using a couple of crimp on terminals to attach the fuse to the addon fuse panel. I then ran a wire back up to the output side of the fuse using a spade terminal pushed into the old fuse location that went out to the accessory. Now my windows, dome light and radio are on the rear battery as well as all the conversion parts. One really nice thing is the windows now work in the accessory key position, they used to work in the ‘on’ position only.

This setup is now complete and working good in my van. I let it sit and play the radio with the dome light on all day. The only power being used from the main battery was to power a relay and the radio memory. Both of those loads are tiny and would take a month or more to run the main battery down. The van started right up and the alternator started charging the second battery back up and at the same time keeping the main battery voltage at 14.7. The only thing I might add is a switch to turn on the accessories without the key just for convenience. For now it is nice to not have to worry about the battery going dead from extended use of the accessories. With the 115AH deep cycle battery I should be able to run the TV and valence lights for about 8 hours without running the battery down low enough to hurt it.

Here is a map of where we went. Part at South Dakota didn’t track for some reason. We went straight across SD then down.

It was around 6,500 miles and the Trailwing tires I put on right before the trip were totally bald and done for when we got home. The bikes had no trouble that mattered other than minor things that needed adjusting. My DR650 held up really well. I had to adjust the valves halfway through due to the entire trip west was into a 25-30mph headwind and the bike was at wide open for entire tanks of gas at a time and worked hard for 2,000 miles.

The packing worked out good. I didn’t take my winter gloves and other parts for cold weather riding. The weather was really cold through all of California and across until we made it to South Dakota. Even SD was a bit cool. If I would have had the winter gloves and a few other things it would have made going through Nevada much nicer. Other than that the under armor and other clothes worked out good. I washed my under armor each night while taking a shower and let it dry overnight then packed it away in the morning and got out my other set. My gear stayed clean mostly due to the rain.

The camping didn’t work out as good as planned. Most of the time we ended up getting somewhere near dark and all the campgrounds we checked were around the same price as a hotel room. There isn’t much point in paying $40 for a campground with no electricity when a hotel is typically $55 and include a breakfast buffet. The weather also played a big part in our decision to stay in a hotel most of the time. It rained a lot and was really cold. We didn’t bring our winter camping gear so it was pretty cold when we did camp.

The extra gallon of gas I carried came in handy a few times and was good to dump in sometimes when we just wanted to go a bit farther before stopping somewhere. It used two straps to hold the in that position. One strap went to the stock grab bar and the other went around the frame beside the carb. It held the can on nice and tight and was easy to remove when I needed to use it. When I was riding the bike the can was tucked up and to the side so I never hit it or felt it while riding. It was the perfect spot and if I went on another long trip I would probably make a bracket to hold it there a bit better. I could use the stock passenger peg bolt holes to mount a small platform to strap the can down to.

The pack on top of the top case was just strapped around the bottom of the case. If I would have had some loops on the top of the case it would have made getting into the case much easier. Instead of having to unhook the three straps then open the case I could have just opened the case and let the pack stay attached to the lid. It would have made things much more convenient. I took the windshield off for this trip. I didn’t want to deal with the turbulence on my helmet and the loud booming noise. The wind pressure really doesn’t bother me so that was no an issue. I mostly wanted it for keeping bugs off my gear but I never could get it smooth enough to not drive me nuts after a few hours of riding. The seat worked out great and made riding for 12 hours in a day no problem. The ability to adjust the air pressure while riding was really nice.

Overall the planning for this trip worked out good and except for a few minor things the whole trip went off without a problem. For the next trip I am taking my winter gear no matter where we are going. The weather is just to strange anymore to be able to predict what it is going to be like and it really isn’t that much more to pack. I still don’t see much need to pack any tools beyond the toolkit that came with the bike. Maybe add a 13mm to it since that is the only thing it doesn’t have.

June 15th, Strange hotel room with a bathtub beside the bed.

June 16th Lincoln’s home and surrounding area.

June 17th, Welcome to West Virginia.