Is there room under the tank to run wiring?

[merchant]

Greetings from a newbie in North Texas! This forum is fantastic - lots of info with a sense of humor to boot. I have already found one major solution - how to mount the Stebel air horn. Thanks SuperTen! Great solution. I mounted the Stebel and FZ1 fuse block yesterday and all works well (so far).

Now I am moving on to installing a J & M CB along with a Zumo 550 with XM antenna. This promises to be much more challenging. For one thing, I will need to route the CB antenna cable from the rear of the bike up to the CB unit on the bars. It would be really handy if there is a channel under the tank that would allow me to run wires/cables out of sight. I have not taken the tank off yet, so thought I would ask here before going through the effort (and possibly screwing something up).

Side note - I KLR'd a mounting plate for the CB out of aluminum sheet. Couldn't bring myself to pay another $60 to J&M. I think it turned out pretty decent. Spacers were needed between the mounting plate and the CB to give it enough clearance to operate the mic switch.

 

[AVGeek]

While I haven't run any there yet, I do know that there is plenty of room under the tank, and its one of the easiest ones to get underneath (just be sure to pull the breather hoses up before tilting the tank up!)

 

[jajpko]

Greetings from a newbie in North Texas! This forum is fantastic - lots of info with a sense of humor to boot. I have already found one major solution - how to mount the Stebel air horn. Thanks SuperTen! Great solution. I mounted the Stebel and FZ1 fuse block yesterday and all works well (so far).

Now I am moving on to installing a J & M CB along with a Zumo 550 with XM antenna. This promises to be much more challenging. For one thing, I will need to route the CB antenna cable from the rear of the bike up to the CB unit on the bars. It would be really handy if there is a channel under the tank that would allow me to run wires/cables out of sight. I have not taken the tank off yet, so thought I would ask here before going through the effort (and possibly screwing something up).

Side note - I KLR'd a mounting plate for the CB out of aluminum sheet. Couldn't bring myself to pay another $60 to J&M. I think it turned out pretty decent. Spacers were needed between the mounting plate and the CB to give it enough clearance to operate the mic switch.

You don't have to take the tank off to run your wires. Just tilt it up and tie it off. Loosen up the vent lines before you raise the tank. If you take off the pillion seat and the plastic mount, you will see where to run the wires. follow this and the wire bundles out to under the tank. Continue to follow the bundles up to the cockpit area. Now you should have a nice run and good to go. I used the right side.

 

[merchant]

Thanks for the good tips. I've already removed the passenger seat, but not the deck underneath. Will give that a try during the next wrenching session. But now it's time to prep for the superbowl. Don't care about either team, but its a good excuse to eat greasy food and drink beer on a Sunday afternoon.