In December of 2002, I met with Bill and Bonnie Sydnor, who own the "Under The Sun Sports" shop in Frederick, MD. Bill graciously offered the common area behind his store. This common area at one time was a walk-in, six theater movie house, now used for storage. This was a perfect place for making the necessary repairs and upgrades to "Bikezilla"
The main repairs would be to the mid-frame cassette and derailleur area, where the derailleur had ripped off of the frame drop-out. The hanger was replaced, but on a maiden voyage to test the repairs, the drop-out had disintegrated. I then went to a local weld shop to have it repaired.
A single feed from the battery bus bar feeds the fusebox, (1986 Plymouth Voyager) under the fairing. The 12v is then redistributed to the horn relay and compressor,supplying the two air horns(loud,"Yes"). Power is also delivered to the two 55w Blazer headlights flooding the area ahead of the bike(much more light than even the best bicycle lighting), tail and turn signal relay and lights, amateur radio gear, accessory sockets for cell phone and small Radio Shack portable tv were added along with transformer voltages for small electronic appliances and volt meter to monitor the charge level of the battery. Battery charge is supplied by a thirty watt solar module and regulator provided by AstroPower.
Next, the electrical system was upgraded. The upgrade would include a Pioneer FM903XM satellite receiver as a part of the XM Satellite Radio System, and a Jensen AM-FM-CD Player. Since the Pioneer receiver is just that, a receiver, the satellite receiver is dependant on the Jensen amplifier to amplify the signal transmitted by the satellite receiver. This is done in a very straight forward manner. The satellite receiver comes with an antenna junction box with a wire lead coming out of the box. The lead wire is plugged into the back of the satellite receiver and the AM-FM and the AM-FM antenna is plugged into the junction box. Very simple. To accommodate the four channels of the Jensen stereo, two small amplified speakers were added to the fairing for the front, with the Radio Shack Minimus speakers in the rear.
An upgrade to the taillight-turn-emergency signal and indicator system was made by adding APC tail-turn lights to Petersen cans on the rear of the trailer and to the front of the bike. Then led indicators were added to the left and right side of the dash. A "Wig-Wag" flasher, was added as an attention getting device to wake some drivers out of their stupor. These wig-wag switches and relays are not generally available to the public, so I made my own. They alternate the flashing of lights rather than all lights flash at once. The wig-wag also operates the VistaLite lights in the stobe mode.
