Maintenance Log – Page 37 – Not Your Average Engineer

March 14, 2009November 15, 2021

Engine guards for the Shadow

The other week I managed to win an E-bay auction for a genuine Honda Shadow engine guard. It’s pretty rare that you see these things go up for auction. Even rarer that you can buy them for under 100 bucks. It was my lucky day.

Below are a few photos of the installation of the engine guard. When I went to install mine, I had a few troubles figuring out just how to mount the whole contraption. Hopefully these photos will be of use to someone else in the future.

Note that the flat metal bit that goes inside the frame tube does not actually connect to anything on my 1984 Honda Shadow. It is simply left dangling out in the air. Perhaps on other makes or models of Honda, it actually bolts to something. On mine it dangles awkwardly. This doesn’t seem to affect the strength or rigidity of the bars at all.

Left side exhaust system partially disassembled. The exhaust system must be disassembled to attach the engine guards to the bike.

Cross-bar in front of radiator. The radiator shroud must be removed during installation.

Later that day I went out and bought two cheap highway pegs to mount on the bars. It is much, much more comfortable to ride my bike now. In the future I plan to upgrade to forward pegs to let my feet and legs stretch out a bit more. The one nice thing with the way they are mounted now is that I can heel shift and heel brake from cruising position.

November 16, 2008

Broken plastic

I broke one of the plastic tabs off of my right plastic side cover on my motorcycle today. I was trying to remove it so it wouldn’t meet the same fate as my left plastic. It still should be able to stay on but its annoying that one of the three tabs is now very much broken. Perhaps this is a sign that I need to build my own side covers to make the bike more awesome. When Jaime’s dad saw my bike in the Starbucks parking lot today, he couldn’t figure out what sort of bike it was until I told him. I sort of like the stealth bike appeal.

November 14, 2008July 1, 2020

Lost plastic side panel and trickle charger for winter

Today on my motorcycle ride I managed to loose my left plastic side panel. New ones aren’t available at any price so far as I can tell. On ebay I can get a used panel, that is if I can find it in the right color and without too much damage, for about 50 USD. The bike doesn’t strictly need that panel to function but it does decrease its value and its astetic qualities. Maybe I will see about making my own cover instead.

Last week I bought a trickle charger from NewEnough.com for a very reasonable price. I chose the Deltran Battery Tender Jr. It cost me 30 USD plus a few bucks in shipping. I credit the charger for the easy time I had this morning starting my bike in the cold. Unfortunately, it was also partially the reason why I lost my left side panel. The panel has to be removed to access the battery terminals for charging. When I went to replace it, I must not have done a very good job re-securing it.

The rest of the winter I believe I will be riding around without any extraneous plastic bits that can fall off. Earlier in the summer I already lost one of the mini bullet bolt covers for my license plate holder. That time, the piece wacked Carl in the leg. This time I have no idea what happened to my poor plastic side panel. After I realized it fell off (as soon as I got home), I jumped in my car and drove the route to see if I could find it. Alas, it was all for naught.