Hypercharger to Mooneyes done properly on a 1500 Vulcan

This bike is not idling quite right when cold. I'm not a fan of the hypercharger and I'm betting that it's jetted all wrong. So I figure I will look at everything and make it all correct.

I have the tank off already so now I can get down to business. Four bolts hold this cover.


Disconnect the vacuum line that operates the butterflies.


Three bolts hold the hypercharger on the Thunder Mfg adapter plate and backing plate.


Here's the trick to the situation. Thunder Mfg makes several airboxes for 1500 Vulcan. The backing plate on the right works for most of those. The adapter plate on the left lets you mount a Kuryakyn Hyper charger to the thunder stuff. That plate has three holes are the same a Harley Keihin CV40. So if you have these parts, you can easily add any HD airbox to a 1500 Vulcan.


So my plan is to run an airbox that most folks haven't ever seen on 1500 Vulcan. So I picked up this little Mooneyes number from LowBrow Customs.


It has holes for either a CV or Super E. It's a little confusing so once I found the holes that lined up, I marked them.





I had read one review on this airbox that said the holes needed to be countersunk to fit the filter. But the filter sits on the stand off and works fine with socket bolts I already had.


This should work just fine.


This is the only part of the set-up that I found a bit chintzy. The screw for the cover goes through a clip-on nut. I decided to run the screw through without the cover and filter just once to help it fit the threads. The only good thing about the clip-on nut is that replacements(if needed) are readily available.


Altogether now. It will clear the tank just fine, but I think the backing plate and adapter plate will get some black powdercoat.


Now pull the whole mess to get at the carburetor.


The plate was still attached to the crankcase breather, too.


Undo the choke cable and loosen the clamp on the intake boot, so the carb can swing out a bit.


This is a carb warmer, maybe the silliest idea that Kawasaki ever can up with. A heat exchanger to help with the cold idle. By the time the antifreeze is warm, you shouldn't need the carb warmed, too.


That's the tiny surface area that gets warmed.


Time bypass that. Here's the bottom hose to the carb warmer.


I pulled the hose, but forgot the last time I did this the engine coolant was already drained. I needed a helper to plug the hole.


I put the hose, with a plug, back on to stop the flow.


Off with the carb bowl. The bowl was clean so I don't think I'll need to really soak and clean the carb. As far as the jets go. 170 main and 45(stock) pilot as I suspected.



So I'll go with the 46 I picked up.  Remember Harley CV idle jets fit just fine.


Let's see what needle is in here.


Yep, the adjustable kind.


We want go back to stock here. N2PY


Luckily Nate had donated the correct needle to my jet box already.


On to the rest of the wrong stuff. This is the cold air intake for REED Valves. The hypercharger instruction say plug this. Which effectively eliminates the whole system.


Might as well get rid of the system if you're not going to use it.


Coasters!


Don't forget the choke cable bracket.


Coasters installed on to other things.

Go ahead and drain the anti-freeze. I was thinking about just capping the carb warmer nipples. But I don't have caps on hand and Lummie can weld them up about as fast I will have everything else ready to put back together. Oh yeah, I'm sure this is 12 year old anti-freeze, too.


Here's the top carb warmer pipe. It goes to the top of the front head, pull the bolt that holds it.


There's a hidden bolt that holds the lower carb warmer pipe, too.


Pretty much the whole job. Make sure I get the carb air screw to 1 1/2 turns out, put things back together and refill the anti-freeze and it will run again better than new. I need to flush the brake lines, replace the tires and swap the tins and it should be ready to ride in public.

Tearing into Déjà Vu

Time to really tear into this 02. It needs some basic maintenance(that's been neglected) and some inspections, plus a few parts swapped out or just removed altogether. It's a bit overwhelming to think of all the major and minor things that need to be done. Last time, I did everything a little at a time over several years; now I know what works and what is just dumb. I figure I will work left-side to right-side then back to front, so I can do everything in an organized fashion and not get off track and forget something.

Wow! There's not a rat's nest of wires under the seat. That's just weird.


I don't need this bell on it.


I'll put that up here with the bell that came on the last bike I bought.


The bike is running stock bars, but the levers felt like they were located all wrong when I rode it home. The stock bars have hole to line up the control boxes with a pin and dimple to line up the clamp split for the lever/mirror perches. Sure enough, the front brake was all wrong.


Here's the dimple to line the brake side clamp up with.


The clutch lever was goofy, too, but this dimple isn't right and for some reason there's not a pin and hole for the control box either. That's weird, but I just aligned everything on the left to match up with the stuff on the right. Everything feels much better now. There's a reasonable chance of ape hangers eventually, but that's way done on the list for now.


Well this is kind of a bummer, I was hoping that the chrome covers on the sidecovers would be easily removed, but there are three holes in the side cover to hold the chrome cover on. I'll put these up for sale, but I'll need to get stock replacements for them, too.


Neato, a dirt dauber nest under the right cover.


Same drilled holes of course.


I don't need this accent piece.


This bike has 11.5 inch Progressive 412s on it. Normally that would be a bonus, but I was hoping to keep this bike at the stock 12.5 ride height, because I have really scraped the frame and floorboards a bunch on my other 11.5 inch Vulcan 1500.


I had to pull the left floorboard to get behind the left engine. The feelers on the floorboards have never rubbed the ground. Clearly the previous owners were not aggressive riders at all.


Now the left cover can come off.


I wonder which of these covers is going back on? The one with the black inner will go on and the chrome inner will be up for sale.


Here's the start of the recent alternator problem on my 03. A little oil seems to creep it's way out of the alternator and up the wire and then make a mess.


I think I will be proactive this time. A good thorough coating of liquid tape on the exposed parts of the plug couldn't hurt anything.


Let that set up and do a few more coats.


The background on this part. The 1500's have a rectifier/regulator mounted under the swingarm. There is no reason for this other than covering the ugly stock muffler "goat's belly" with an equally ugly rectifier/regulator. Then MaKaw will even sell you a chrome piece to draw more attention to the ugliness. This bracket comes with the Vance and Hines Straight Shots and lets you hide it a bit better. In my opinion, it is still not the best option.


It's so easy to put the regulator out front with the other regulator.


There's even a nice spot with perfectly spaced and threaded holes for it. Now, if I can find a stock bracket, I will fit a HD teardrop toolbox under the swingarm.


The chrome swingarm cover is already dented from hitting the passenger peg mount and rusting. What a worthless piece of chrome.


That's rust not dirt.


Man, I'm glad I only needed to ride 40 miles homes. That's a bald 12 year old stock rear tire right there.


I want to flush the clutch line and I thought about covering the tank to protect the paint from the DOT 4. But I'm going to need the tank off to work on the carb next, so I just went ahead pulled the tank completely off.


Yep, the at DOT 4 is 12 years old and looks like Coca-Cola.


Flush and bleed the line and call it a day.