Digital Gear Indicator Replacement Very Inexpensive

[Ebayru]

On a lark, I decided to see if I could find a replacement for the gear indicator light on my 1974 GT550

On Ebay I found a number of selections for about $6.00 delivered from China. They have gears 1 thru 5 and a neutral indicator. The one I chose used "0" for neutral and another used "N". I chose the one that used the "0" because I thought the form factor would be easier to work with and it had the connector which turned out was a match for the one on my GT550.

I made a bracket for it out of sheet metal. I had to switch the contacts in the connector to correspond to the pin outs on the GT. The picture on Ebay shows the wires with pins without the connector, but mine came with it. It is very easy to reuse the connector from the bad gear indicator if it comes without it.

That's all there was to it . The numbers are much larger and brighter than the original. I'm very pleased to have a working gear indicator light for an investment of about $8 and some of my time. Hey, I'm retired so what's time.

DigGearIndicatorEbay.JPG

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[oldjapanesebikes]

Nice one !

[Ebayru]

Some more pictures....

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5th.JPG

[Ebayru]

I hope this helps someone who would like to have a working gear indicator light and doesn't want to spend a lot. I actually like it better than the original.

[Ebayru]

oldjapanesebikes,

Thanks!

[H2RICK]

VERY slick indeed, Ebayru !!!
This is one thing that has been kind of in the back of my mind for many moons. My indicator works fine....but I know that one of these days one of the segments will die from old age. Now I have a solution thanks to you.
Maybe this should be made into a sticky ??

[TLRam1]

Nice fix!

[Cliff]

5864.1 MILES!!!!! On a GT550L!! Please don't tell me that's all that's on her!! Let's have some more pics of the bike!
Nice fix on the indicator! Mine only buggers up when I've been riding in the rain! I've been in 6th gear and sometimes even 8th. on wet days!!
Cliff!

[Ebayru]

What's a "Sticky"? Sorry for being too lazy to search it out, but I'm buried here with "must do's"

As far as I know, the mileage is accurate, but I don't know much at all about the history of the bike. It was found in a scrap yard by a friend who knew the owner of the yard and I got it for free. By some lucky circumstances, I was able to find the title holder and he gave me the title for $50. The bike would turn over but then at a certain point lock up. It was a disintegrated starter gear that would lock up the other gears. I rebuilt the clutch, starter clutch, replaced the starter motor and did a bunch of electrical stuff. If you find my post on "GT550 charges when cold but stops charging when hot", you'll see what most of the electrical was about. I added a voltmeter from Harbor Freight without getting too fancy when I was diagnosing the charging problem and I decided to leave it. I had to replace the fuse section as that was all messed up by the previous owner.

Cosmetically, I replaced the side covers. and essentially just cleaned it up. Most of the rusty chrome cleaned up surprisingly well except for the chain guard that I painted black. I painted the side covers black rather than try to match the red. The tank paint was in surprisingly good shape except for some small chips which I touched up with some Toyota Super Red which is not an exact match, but works OK for small chips. Some guy on Ebay sells seat covers for less than $30 and it is very well made. The carb bellows were shot, but I found a really raunchy carb set on Ebay for $15 that had the bellows intact so I bought it for the bellows and any other spare parts for potential use in the future.

Of course the speedo and tach lenses were extremely clouded so I made some from some dental acrylic and a vacuum former. It was a little work cutting out the old lenses but I was able to get them out in good enough shape to make a mold for them to form the new lenses. They are not perfect but are acceptable.

It needed tires because the ones on them had dry rot and found it was cheaper to buy wheels with good tires from Ebay than tires alone. So now I have extra wheels and parts from them. The brake fluid was like molasses but I was able to flush the system with fresh fluid and the brakes came back. I also needed a new reservoir bellows.

My original idea of getting the bike was just to see if I could get it running. I hadn't had a bike in over 30 years and had only had 2 strokes. But sure enough, I got the bug again and also wound up getting an '90 Yamaha RZ350 from Canada. I got the GT in the summer of 2008, had repaired the clutch and starter gear and then got distracted for almost 2 years. I finished it last fall. It was more fun to drive than I expected. The RZ and GT are two totally different animals.

I intentionally did not want to do a spot on restoration of the GT550. I have learned that when I do something too well, I worry about it more than enjoy it. So, I wanted to make it look good but took no effort to make it "perfect". Knowing that, I've been surprised by the reactions I've had from people when the see it. I guess it looks better to them than it does to me.

Shel

[H2RICK]

Shel, she looks pretty good to me, too.
To my mind, the 74 and 76 red 550's are the sharpest lookers of all the 550's.
You've done a heckuva job rescuing her from the scrap heap and making a very nice daily rider out of her.

BTW, a "sticky" is a thread that contains some crucial info. The particular thread gets modified so that it stays at the top of a particular section, no matter how many threads are in that section.
This is a great help in that no one has to troll through the whole section trying to find your thread about replacing the indicator. It saves a LOT of time for all concerned.
Stickys have to be created, IIRC, by the Board Admin folks.

[two-stroke-brit]

looks like a nice bike to run around on ,
trailor queens are more to worry about than fun to ride.
cheers mark

[Craig380]

@Shel -- excellent work with the gear indicator. That is also a SWEET 550 by any standards, let alone a $50 yard find.

I wish I had your luck (and electrical skills)

[Ebayru]

I thought I'd follow up with an update on the gear indicator. When I first did the installation I added a voltage regulator to the circuit because I worried that the voltage fluctuation allowed by the GT550's regulator would blow out the LED display. However, the regulator I added failed after a few hours of running and I decided to eliminate it and see if the voltage variation would cook the LED display. It is just fine. The fact that the display maintains constant brightness as the voltage regulator cycles between it's high and low range makes me think the Chinese gear indicator has some internal voltage regulation.

So, if you decide to do it, keep it simple. Just wire it up.

Shel

[oldjapanesebikes]

Scorch (or one of the admins) - could we sticky this thread please ?

[oldjapanesebikes]

Scorch (or one of the admins) - could we sticky this thread please ?

OK - let's try this again Now that the 'electrical' topic thread has been created, how be this be moved to there ? Doesn't need to be a 'sticky' I suppose, but moving it would make it easier to find in future.