Battery change

It's been cold of late... really cold. There's not much worse than going through the five minute operation that is "gearing up" only to have a bike that won't start - though such an event really warms the body. So with the [near] blessing from my local mechanic, I head off to Batteries Plus to get an Odyssey battery to solve all my problems. Only, I forgot which one. The clerks weren't much more knowledgeable than I - which is sort of scary come to think of it. After some time, I concluded that the PC-535 was the right one so I paid for it. Then... realizing he had a browser open, I ask him to do a search for 'advrider 1200gs odyssey fit'... which he obligingly does, returning a picture like this one.  So, second guessing myself, I think ok, well, return the 535 and I'll get that one - it's more powerful anyway, great. Only... I glanced at the picture and didn't see that tidbit about a seat modification to make it work. So anyway, I get my new PC-625 home tonight excited about riding tomorrow after much too long. During installation I found myself thankful for the recent feastful holiday because were it not for those extra pounds I may not have been able to stuff that big pig of a battery into such a small cavity.


With battery in place and wires reconnected, I decide to give her a test start. Push button... purrr... nice, I love it when things [roughly] just work. Man, I'll just put the seat back on and get to ride to work tomorrow. But... wait a minute... the seat doesn't fit anymore. A little Google-time leads me to this . Which leads me to my own little adhoc seat mod. I'm sure the angle grinder approach is perfectly sound, but I don't have one and it's late, the kids need to get to bed, and I have to work with what I've got so I take a faster alternate approach.


... and ended up with this...



and an up close view...

which, once you add the fasteners, ends up like this:

Now, I've got two fastening solutions in my toolbox and I went with duct tape this time. For a heavy-duty application like this I normally wouldn't rely on the lighter fastener but Gorilla Glue just seemed too "permanent" for this particular application. Man, I really need to find a middle ground...