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Formotion clock fit


Lucky Phil

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1 hour ago, p6x said:

I thought about that; to be really efficient as a guide, it should be clamped, completely immobilized.

I trust that I should be able to drill the hole perpendicular to the clamp, and concentric enough to be tapped.

Before I get to the real thing, I will do a few trials. But my pilot hole should help.

Holding by hand is not the perfect solution but it's a lot better then freehand if that's all you've got. You can use some lockjaw pliers to hold the guide and reduce the issue, that's why the larger dia the better for the guide. Downward pressure on a large surface area to keep it perpendicular. If the pilot holes not straight neither will be the tapping hole.

Ciao

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On 8/12/2021 at 9:20 PM, Lucky Phil said:

Holding by hand is not the perfect solution but it's a lot better then freehand if that's all you've got. You can use some lockjaw pliers to hold the guide and reduce the issue, that's why the larger dia the better for the guide. Downward pressure on a large surface area to keep it perpendicular. If the pilot holes not straight neither will be the tapping hole.

Ciao

I am going to look into getting an adequate vice grips; some have large jaws that would allow me to hold the actual spacer I have purchased to offset the clock's holding bracket from the fork's clamp.

Although I am pretty confident I should be able to hand drill at 90 degrees, but I have not used my skills for so many years.

 

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@Lucky Phil

The spacer that I purchased has an OD of 13mm for M6; only 3mm available to grip it.

No matter the height of the spacer or boss, OD still 13mm.

It is going to be challenging to grip hold something too high.

The best bet would be the third one from the top.

vice grip 1vice grip 2vice grip 3

 

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Personally I'd be inclined to start with a guided 3mm pilot hole. So what you could do if you have or know someone that has a pedestal drill is get anything that has 2 flat parallel faces and is around 10mm thick and approx 10mm or square or rectangular doesn't matter as long as it sits flat on the top of the clamp The bigger the better for holding by hand and put it in the pedestal drill and drill a 3mm hole through it. Then get someone or yourself to hold it flat against the surface as a drill guide. It doesn't need to be held in a really hard or complex way its just a guide, and drilling carefully means it's pretty easy to hold. After you've got the first pilot hole through you can open the hole in the guide to the finished size and do it again. The other thing to do is make up a small right angle triangle cardboard square to check you tap the hole straight as you go unless you have a tiny mini square already. Having a straight parallel hole is no guarantee the hole will tap straight, you still need to start it for the first 2 threads perpendicular to the top surface. When I make these home made drill guides I usually just hold them by hand and drill slowly with the battery drill, it's pretty easy to do.

I drilled these holes for my steering stop extensions insitu and tapped them using this technique with a drill bit in my air die grinder I generally only use for porting as thats the only thing that would get in there. Perfectly straight and square. Would never have been possible by hand insitu without the guides.

Ciao

DSC01019.JPG

 

       

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I purchased that 3mm short drill in that optic, to make a pilot hole.

As for pedestal drill, I checked with a workshop, but they said I would have to just bring the clamp to them, and they clearly weren't interested in going out of their way to help.

Now that I have purchased all the tools, I will do it myself. Even if I am not perfectly perpendicular, I should still have enough threads to affix the instruments.

I am not too thrilled with the option to hold anything by hand when you drill. For safety reasons.

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  • 10 months later...

I finally installed the two Formotion instruments after a long moment of reflection.

Rather than using the front fork tee, I opted to use the 6mm screws that hold the front fairing cover. It is not (yet) perfect. I have plastic bushings that I was planning to file down at an angle, so the instruments would be perfectly in line with my vision when I ride the bike. But I need a vice to do that properly. Instead, I used washers to make up for the recess, and simply installed the thermometer on the left and the clock on the right. No permanent modification of the Guzzi. That's what I prefer.

Unfortunately, the Formotion instruments don't have night fluorescent pointers, at night they will be unreadable. Which is fine, since I am still not planning to ride at night.

Formotion Temp and Clock installation

______________________________________________________________________________________

 

I am considering the installation of an RTD or Thermocouple based Oil Temperature indicator. I know that the oil temperature information is unnecessary. I am simply interested in finding a way to do it. I would like to get that information on the dashboard, so the oil combined thermometer dipstick is not what I am looking for.

 

One way to use gas flow rate, is to measure pressure, differential pressure across a known orifice, and of course temperature taken in the gas stream. Before electronics took over, we used RTD devices, which were completely mechanical.

 

I found what I was looking for in Europe, now what I need to devise, is where to connect the temperature probe on the Guzzi.

 

But its another thread I guess.

 

[docc edit: agreed. Installing Oil Temperature Sensor thread created  based upon @p6x's comment, italicized.]:

 

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After two days of driving around, I have a small inconvenience to report.

The thermometer gauge vibrates between 65 and 70 mph. Not enough to make the instrument unreadable, but it does look out of focus.

Strangely enough, the clock is not affected, and remains unvibrating at the same speed.

Now, I do not know why the right side behaves differently than the left side, but I am going to try to find out if I can do something to alleviate the problem.

Something I have noticed is in motion, yesterday, the temperature read about 106 degF. After a stop, it was about 101 degF. Since the Formotion gauge has no probe, I am thinking it is not very accurate. Good enough when the bike is not moving.

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  • 7 months later...

The following threads have some photos of how I mounted the Formotion clock and thermometer on my Lemans.  

I'm glad this thread was started because I was curious how this new larger series of clocks and thermometers from Formotion looked on the V11.

My clock is long dead, but just needs a battery I'm sure.  But oddly the thermometer is stuck at 80F, when it was 40F outside, so that aint right ;)  I saw some mention above about adding silicone oil back to the thermometer, so maybe that's the fix?  Maybe I'll reach out to Formotion to find out what they recommend.

To be honest, with smartphones coming along a few years later, and all the services/apps available these days; having the clock and thermometer, and unlighted at that, mounted on my bike probably isn't quite as useful anymore but kind of nice to have aesthetically.

 

 

 

 

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