Any ideas for the ugly plastic shroud around ignition?

So, one of the things I don't like on my pretty much stock XJ is that cheesy plastic around the ignition. It says "750" or some such on it (I've had to glue that back on, actually) Also, it's been broken by a ham-handed PO so I have it JB welded in place. Because it's broken where it is supposed to attach to this little knob deal.

At some point I'm gonna revamp my gauges, so this piece, which is designed to fit with the Atari will be unnecessary. I'm just wondering what other people have done. Just tossing it and running the bare top of the triple tree/ignition cylinder looks kinda awkward, in my opinion. Especially with the '82 square handle bars.

How hard to bend some diamond plate or something to go around the ignition? I understand why they put that piece there, but it just kind of rattles around and looks too much like cheap car-trim from the '80s.

Here, I found a random pic of the piece I mean, ignore GPS, I took this when I was mounting that:

 

Stick a clock on one side and a bike speedo on the other

 

Once you get your new gauges in place, get a scrap of broken dash or console from the junkyard that has "leather grain" pattern, trim to fit, paint flat black.

If you're lucky, you can find a piece with 2 rounded edges of the correct width. The back of a center console.

 

Just get some of this stuff to cover it till you decided what to do with it later.

Diamond plate Tape

 

looks good that tape, what will they come up with next

 

http://www.usbrassshop.com/Custom%20Pla ... ates%20Top

 

make the whole rest of the bike into a Rat bike, then that'll fit right in.

Dave F

 

The whole driver interface is in need of some beautifying, really. It's all kinda "rat" as far that goes, 30 year old switchgear and plastic will do that.

Ignoring the bare bulb turn signal in that pic, which has been fixed since then. If you look close, that left mirror is all messed up, (so is right, but not shown) and it's screwed into a windshield mounting thing that is JB welded in place because the mirror mount threads are stripped. Throttle cable adjuster is also "repaired." Both my clutch lever and brake lever have too much up and down slop for my liking. The two sides of the housing that clamp together onto the bar and contain the start button and kill switch don't seem to line up right. Knob is busted off the brake handle. I could go on and on.

It's almost all minor cosmetic stuff, but things like this get on my nerves. I look at bikes like the Pumba project and want to make every thing my hands have to touch or eyes have to look at while I'm on the bike...less crappy.

 

Mine Came unstuck, I used double sided tape to keep it on. The rattle is kind of annoying. Did you say you were going to revamp gauges? I was thinking about doing that but do not know where to start...

 

I am in the same boat. Trying to figure out where to start. All I know for sure is that I don't want to keep anything but my central lcd display. I have to fabricate something for that. But I have no idea how to mount that box and whatever gauges I end up with, or how it will look with all the gaps and whatnot. Also, I want to add at least a voltmeter and a clock to the instrument cluster.

 

Get some light cardboard or some heavy poster paper from Dollar store and make templates of what you want to do. cheap and easy. I've been know to instead of making a template and putting to sheet metal Taping made template up with a strong packing tape or equivalent and fiber glassing it all together. strong light, and paint adheres well to finished sanded glass part.