dingy Posted September 6, 2009 #1 Posted September 6, 2009 (edited) Gear position Indicator upgradefor standard Ventures (Non-Royales) I have installed a gear position indicating system on my 1983 Venture. This is the stock model without the dash readout from the factory. This is the second Venture I have owned. The first one was a 1984 Royale. Two of the things I really miss from that bike were the gear indicator and the cruise control. The cruise control is coming later. I have all of the stock parts now needed to install it. I obtained a Neutral Switch Assembly from a 1984 Venture Royal through an Ebay auction for under $10.00. This assembly will exchange with the stock neutral switch assembly from a standard Venture. The neutral switch assembly is located between the back end of the stator cover and the front of the middle drive. It sets back in about four inches and is difficult to see, but is accessible. Removal of the middle drive cover is needed to access. To indicate what gear the bike is in I mounted three LED lights in the gauge cluster above the volt gauge. The left light is lit it indicates 1st gear. The left light and the center lights lit indicate 2nd gear. The center light lit indicates 3rd gear. The center light and right lights lit indicate 4th gear. The left light lit indicates 5th gear. The neutral light works as normal. In neutral none of the LED’s are lit. I could also use five LED’s, using one for each gear, but I like the 3 light system as it is easy to see and once familiar with the pattern, it is very easy to determine what gear I am in with a quick glance down at the gauges. I initially used a red, green and amber LED’s but the green and amber had poor visibility in the daytime. I replaced with all red ones. I also painted the part of the LED’s that are inside of the cluster with black paint to keep the light from the instrument cluster from bleeding through the LED’s translucent housing. I used four diodes and three LED’s from radio shack for the light logic circuit. Four IN4004 rectifier diodes. Price $.99 for two Three Red LED assemblies. Price $1.99 each The new Neutral Switch Assembly has a six pin plug on the end that sets in the same area that the stator and rectifier plugs are near the fuel pump. I had two spare diode assemblies that I have obtained in the past and used the plug from one of these to mate up with the plug on the Neutral Switch cable. I had to take one extra wire connector from the second diode assy. As the diode assembly plug only used five wires. You do not need to use this connector if you do not want to though. I retained this plug as I will be replacing the wiring harness when I install the cruise control. I put the diodes in the circuit near the plug connections on the end of the neutral switch assy. I then ran three 18 gauge wires up to the instrument cluster. I used a trailer four conductor plug I had to make a connection at the instrument panel. I have attached a PDF file with pictures and a wiring schematic to install this. Edited September 8, 2009 by dingy Added pictures
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