Not something for everyone as the MK1 instruments are great looking and to my mind are one of the defining factors of the bike. It took me a long time to build up the courage to chop them out ! There were a few deciding factors one of which being that the rev counters are prone to breaking, another being speedo is a bit “old school” in the fact that it gets a bit wavy at speed !!!

The first rule I gave myself was if it doesn’t look good it’s not going on the bike ! So after seeing a potential candidate (Daytona Deva 01) at an online shop I took some dimensions and mocked up the look with cardboard to see if it would work

Removing the standard clocks leaves a considerable gap between top yoke and the headlight. You don’t realise just how big that clock set up is and how diminutive digital clocks are ! It was clear they needed to sit in that area better so a mounting plate was needed to move them into and a tad down into the gap required for the right look. Happy with this I ordered one up.

I cut out a rough mounting plate, drilled it to see how it was so far.

I still needed to drop it slightly into the space behind the headlamp bowl and this was achieved by mounting rubber tap washers underneath the top yoke which also served to “rubber mount” the clock assembly. The mounting plate itself needed shaping and looking less blocky ! So I drilled a number of holes in it and the painted it black to suit.

Mocked it back up on the bike again

Whilst at this stage and happy that the outcome would work I decided to start to wire the unit in. I used the plug and part of the loom from another set of standard clocks. This allowed me to cut and connect the clock wires into an orginal plug that would then plug into the exsisting loom in the headlight bowl.

To be honest replacing the entire lot and crimping in new connecters would be my preferred option should I do it again, as the original connecter block isn’t the most water proof of best quality ! I fact whilst you are in there I would recommend popping all of the connector blocks apart in the headlight bowl & hitting them with so contact cleaner and dielectric grease.

The Factory manual wiring diagram is a must, as Haynes is not 100% accurate colour wise. But a basic run of the colours for Speed Triples are

Left indicator… Green

Right indicator..Grey

Oil warning…….Pink

Tacho pulse……Blue Black

High Beam…….Red Black

Neutral………….Light green white

Earths……………Black yellow

Power stitched ..Brown

Additional to this I needed to run a constant fused power direct from the battery (for clock I assume). An option I wanted was to run some shift lights that would work from a switched earth output on my new Ignitech Ignitor box. This could then be programed to sync in with the dash shift light rev bar function. This required power supply for the lights which I took from one of the brown live switched power supplies in the headlight bowl.

A common question is how do you get around the cable drive speedo to the front wheel? Well I’m pleased to say there are options.

You can fit a GPS module which you would hide away and take it’s speed from satellite (works through plastic), you can use the supplied magnetic pic up (comes with the kit) which requires you to attach the magnet to the wheel/brake disc which then triggers pickup sensor which you attach to the front fork leg.

Both of these options would leave you with a redundant speedo drive on the front wheel requiring you to plug the input or replace the unit with a custom made space.

One other option suited me better, which was a Speed Pulse Converter, this runs the same route (all be it a wire not a cable) to the speedo drive. It has powered magnetic pick up designed to fit the original speedo drive. You program the dash with the number of pulses the new pick up receives over 10 revolutions to set the speed up.

This also added to the wiring list, as it required a switched power and earth supply.

I fitted a replacement water temp sensor that was plug and play, plus an ambient air temp sensor that went in the headlight bowl.

I Ordered up some fixings and fasteners to give the whole lot a more finished look. Finally not wishing to clean bugs out the back of the new dash all the time, I fitted a Puig fly screen which had the added bonus of Triumph branding on it as was designed for a 2017 Bonnie Black.

You can see the two nickle plated LED shift lights that I have sunk into the mounting plate and work as intended.

Rubber mounting washer

Some advantages of a Digital dash are (in my case as they all carry slightly different features) Clock, volt meter, Ambient air temp, programmable  shift light , programmable water temp warning light with real time degrees in centigrade or Fahrenheit , multiple trips, switchable MPH/Kmh, Gear indicator, and soon to be fitted functioning fuel gauge, plus you can rely the accuracy of the Speedo and Revs to be bang on unlike the rather wayward originals with their endearing flappy needles ! 

The gear position is good and easy to program….Down sides are some of the smaller numbers can be hard to read. An LED rev bar isn’t as responsive as a good old fashioned needle. The contrast in super bright sun light could be better (although my tinted visor probably doesn’t help).

     

UPDATE

After about 1000 miles one of the back lights in the new dash started to flicker, after some research it narrowed down to being over voltage or vibration. Voltage was checked with two different reg/rec and was good that left vibration. Funnily enough the cause of our wayward speedos and rev counter deaths !

Good service from https://www.digital-speedos.co.uk/ saw a replacement dash sent,I then set about foam mounting the dash as per race bikes etc.

Chopping the orginal bracket gave suffiecient area to use some foam mounting pads, the sort that stick number plates on. They stick like **** to a blanket thankfully !

So I’ll keep you posted 😉

Whilst having time to play waiting for the replacement dash, it struck me that with all this TFT dash hysteria these days we have pretty much one in our pockets !? With a decent GPS speed app installed the phone could be the speedo, all that would require would be to plumb in an idiot light bar and the revs taken care of by my home brewed shift lights. I mean it doesn’t really matter what revs you are at, the ignitor has a limiter and the rest is down to your right hand and ability/sympathy/aggression/requirement level

Mock up

And of course sat nav too, which has speed in it

Food for thought