After removing the front fender, what to do with the speedometer cable?

[Johnny3D]

The front fender on my recently purchased 1980 XS400 Special is in horribly sad shape and I'm planning on removing it. The thing I'm wondering about is what to do with the speedometer cable after I remove the fender. It looks like it is going through that rubber grommet connected to the fender to keep it from rubbing on the wheel when I turn. So if I have no front fender at all, should I figure out a way to secure it to the fork or just let it hang out in the air and not worry about it?

 

[Wolfe_11B]

As long as its the stock cable, it shouldn't get in the way of the tire. It will bow out to the left. At least it did on mine.

 

[Johnny3D]

Thanks for the reply about that. Cool. I won't worry about it then.

 

[16VGTIDave]

I'd suggest making a bracket to guide/support the cable and keep it away from the tire. If the cable ever got caught in the tire, the bike would want to stop instantly...

 

[Johnny3D]

Where would you suggest I attach a guide/bracket? I considered making a bracket of some kind to hold it but the only place I could think to do that was down on the lower portion of the fork. The thing I worried about there is that it would put extra tension on the speedometer cable.

 

[LuckyEight]

Fender also works like a fork brace. So I would suggest to buy or fab one...

 

[Johnny3D]

Thanks for all the replies. Ultimately I decided I would try my hand at modifying/fixing the front fender. At some point in the past, someone messed up the front fender pretty bad. Apparently it broke and they took the front portion of the fender and kind of glued it and taped it to the portion that remained intact. It looked horrid...

I took the front portion off from where it had been glued/taped (some kind of metal tape) to the back and cleaned up the back portion. I removed as much of the surface rust as I could. Then I carefully drew a slightly curved line, retaining as much of the fender as I could. Then I used my trusty Dremel tool and some heavy duty cut-off wheels to cut along my lines. Then I carefully sanded/buffed out the edge so it wouldn't be sharp. Here is a picture showing the damaged front portion and the pieces that I cut off the rear portion of the fender.

And here are a couple of pictures without the broken and cut off portions:

So... what do you guys think of my repair/modification work on this?

 

[BBS360]

That actually looks pretty good. It'll help keep the forks rigid.