Note added 6/24/00 - Sierra protective pouch!

Installation Instructions
As suggested by Mr. Jack "Buck" Huddle
Alpine CHM-S655RF CD Changer

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Overview of the Alpine CHM-S655RF

The Alpine CHM-S655RF, a 6 CD changer, is an RF modulated unit that supplies its output to the radio of the Interstate as an FM Stereo signal.  That is, you set the FM modulator that comes with the changer to an FM frequency not in use by a strong local station, turn on your CD player, and tune the radio to that frequency.  The available frequency choices range from 87.7 to 89.6 MHz, in 200 KHz steps.  Generally, the sound from an RF modulated system is not quite as clean as that from a conventional CD player.  However, the noisy environment of a motorcycle makes the slightly higher ambient noise level inherent in this method unimportant.
This unit, which has a list price circa $350, is available for about $300, and I have had a report from a person who found the unit for $250.  The unit comes with the changer, the FM modulator unit, the controller with an LCD display, and a remote control.  Be warned that your passenger could use the remote control to operate your CD unit as you zoom down the road.  You may want to loose that remote!
The Alpine CHM-S655RF is a good choice for this application because it has superior vibration control.  The Alpine literature leads us to believe that the vibration isolation method used here, some sort of “silicone damping”, is a technological breakthrough, and perhaps it is.  I am not an expert on CD players so I do not know.  I do know that this unit is amazingly stable.  I recently took my bike through a particularly nasty local road construction site, and Bach never sounded better.  I have seen the outrageously expensive CD changer in my truck skip seriously on this same stretch of road.  However, if you try hard enough you can make it skip.  I hit a very bad dip in the road at 65 mph that launched me off the seat several inches.  The unit did skip, but with a lot of class.  It simply went silent for an instant and then resumed.
By the way, Sony champions an alternative vibration isolation strategy.  The Sony system reads ahead and keeps reading until the computer chip can select a good disk read.  This is a very good scheme as long as the vibration is not constant.  However, if the vibration is constant over a long period of time, the system could fail.  That is, your Harley is not going to quit shaking any time soon!  So, having taken my obligatory jab at the Harley, let me close this part of the discussion by saying that I suspect the Sony unit would work just fine on the Valkyrie, as would, I am sure, a lot of others.  The point is that vibration damping is definitely an issue to consider when you are selecting a CD player for your bike.
Overview of the Installation
The changer will be mounted vertically in the right rear corner of the trunk, the FM modulator will be placed in the empty compartment behind the battery, and the control unit will be mounted on the steering head with Velcro.  This installation is not terribly difficult but quite time-consuming and involves removing the trunk and taking it completely apart, removing the divider from the storage box back of the battery, and finally removing the tank so you can route the control wire to the front of the bike.  When the installation is complete, the only outwardly visible sign of the installation is the CD control on the steering head.
NOTE:  In what follows I will assume that the preliminary unpacking and installation instructions given in the Alpine literature have been read, understood and carried out.  Several of these instructions are VERY important.
Instructions
(1) The Trunk
Fasten rags around the base of your antenna(s) so you do not scratch the trunk when you lift it back and off.  Remove the seat and the right side cover.  Inside the trunk, pop off the plastic covers over the bolts that secure the trunk to the bike (5 in the trunk floor and one in the center-back) and remove the bolts.  Disconnect the power to the trunk at the connector under the right side cover and carefully work the wire out from under the retainers on the frame and pull it to the rear.  Carefully lift off the trunk being aware of the long wire that must follow it out through the frame and the rack.
Now, go to the living room, push all the furniture back out of the middle of the room, crank up the stereo, get a beer, and start taking the trunk apart.  For you married guys, I suspect the middle of the living room is off limits for this project.   Therefore, put out a big pad of some kind on the garage floor, send the wife and kids away for their own safety, get a beer, and start on the trunk.
The trunk consists of an inner liner and an outer shell.  First, remove the trunk lid by removing the bolts, three on each side, that hold the hinges to the bottom section of the trunk.  Then remove those cables that limit how far the trunk lid can open and set the trunk lid aside.
The first step in removing the trunk insert is to remove a vast number of small sheet metal screws hiding under the rubber gasket around the lip of the trunk.  In theory you can push the gasket aside at each screw and remove the screws with the gasket in place.  In practice you are going to get tired of hunting for those screws and say “OH S**T”, and tear the gasket out so you can actually see the screw heads.  So, why not just take the gasket out first and save the frustration.  It is easy to replace when you are done.  Just tack it down again with a bit of black silicone!
Next, remove the four bolts at the rear of the trunk cavity that secure the taillight units and carefully work the light units out, disconnect them, and set them aside.  To continue, remove the three bolts on the housing covering the trunk latch.  You do NOT have to remove that rubber flap at the rear of the trunk.
Now, turn the trunk over and take out the sheet metal screws you see under there.  You do NOT have to remove any of the fasteners on that latch unit.
You have now removed all the fasteners so the trunk should come apart, right?  WRONG!  The trunk sections are being held together very firmly by the six industrial strength grommets still in place.  You must remove all of them and then worry the inner part of the trunk out.
Attach the Alpine-supplied brackets for vertical mounting to the sides of the changer and position it in the right rear of the newly removed inner trunk section.
At this point you have a decision to make.  If you position the changer as close to the rear wall of the trunk as you can you will find that the connector lead on the changer is not long enough to allow you to run it all the way under the trunk insert and come out in the open space between the tail light modules.  That is, you will not be able to replace the inner truck section because the connector will get in the way.  If you wish to make your connection to the RF unit in the space between the trunk sections, then you must mount the unit almost 2 inches from the rear trunk wall.  With this choice, the good news is that the connector is not in the trunk.  The bad news is that you have used up a tad of extra space in the trunk, and if you ever want to remove the unit you will have to again take the trunk apart.  And, as you are about to find out, taking that trunk apart ranks right up there with a root canal in terms of pure pleasure.
Alternately, you can elect to lead the connector from the RF unit into the trunk insert and make the connection inside the trunk.  The good news here is that you can easily remove the changer unit any time you wish and you saved a bit of trunk space.  The bad news is you have some wire and a pretty big connector in the trunk.  This is the method I used.
Having decided where and consequently how you are going to mount the changer, you need to set it in position and mark and drill the four holes (1/4-inch) required for the mounting bolts.  Next you need to drill a 3/4-inch hole in the trunk floor right in the area where the cord is attached to the changer unit when the unit is mounted.  This hole will pass either part of the connector.  Now, either pass the connector from the changer down through the large hole or pass the connector on the end of long cord that leads to the RF unit up through the hole.  Mount the changer by inserting the four bolts up from the bottom of trunk insert, through the changer mounting brackets, add the nuts and tighten it all down firmly to the trunk floor.  Alpine supplies bolts for this task but you may wish to purchase some that are a bit shorter.  I added some good-sized washers on the under side of the trunk to distribute the strain on the plastic.  As a couple of final touches, I fastened the connector to the trunk floor with “industrial strength” Velcro to keep it from rattling.  I also wedged some black foam pipe insulation between the changer unit and the back wall of the trunk to dampen any possible back-front excursions of the changer unit.
With the long connection cord that will lead to the RF unit attached to the changer unit, bring the trunk liner near to the trunk shell and lead the RF cord through the hole in the bottom of the outer trunk shell.  This is the hole used by the power cord for the taillights.  Estimate how much cord you will need to reach the RF unit and bundle up the rest and store it between the tail light modules.  There is a lot of empty space in there.  You had best not let your co-rider know about all this extra space!
Finally, put the trunk back together.  With the two cords hanging out the bottom, mount the trunk on the bike being careful to route the two cables along the frame in the same way the taillight power cord was originally routed.  Connect the taillight plug to the bike’s harness.
Take heart!  You are more than half done.
(2) The RF Unit

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Now is a good time to take off the tank.  
If you have never removed a Valkyrie tank, here is a brief set of instructions.
Turn the gas valve to OFF and be certain you do not move it again as you remove the tank.  Remove the small bolt that secures the valve control to the frame.  With a Phillips screwdriver, go up the center of gas valve control handle and remove the screw that holds the valve control to the shaft of the gas valve.  It helps to shine a light up there because it can be amazingly hard to get your screwdriver lined up correctly.  Now, take the valve handle assembly off the bike and set it aside.
Next, remove the small bolts at the front and back of the tank.  Then, carefully raise the rear of the tank a few inches so you can get your hand under the tank and separate the blue electrical connector, and disconnect the three hoses.  A small one at the very rear of the tank, and a small and large one attached to the body of the gas valve. Now “worry” the tank up and off.  It is mounted on some rather impressive rubber strips up at the front of the frame, and they tend to fight you a bit.
To put the tank back on simply “reverse the steps”, as Honda shop manuals are so fond of saying.  Actually, there is a bit more to it than that.  To replace the tank, bring the tank to the bike tilted quite strongly to the left and as far forward as you can get it and hook up the electrical and the two hoses to the gas valve.  The problem here is that to get your hands in there to work you have to have the tank tilted up, but when you have the tank tilted up the hoses don’t reach.  The small rear hose is easy to hook up so worry about it last.
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Slide the radio up off the two metal tabs and drape it off to the left side of the bike out of the way.  Remove the rubber strap over the battery cover and then remove the battery cover itself.  Behind the battery you will see an empty two-section compartment, a legacy from the Standard and Tourer models.  By what ever means you find comfortable, remove divider between the two compartments.  I used a Dremel tool with a 1-inch diameter cutting and polishing wheel.  I suspect either a small bolt cutter or a very sharp carpet knife would also work.  In any case, when you finish you should have one compartment which is a couple inches deeper in front than in back.  NOTE:  The yellow wire is NOT connected to the red wire as it appears to be in the graphic.
Locate the Alpine RF unit and attach all the electrical power leads.  That is, attach the yellow lead directly to the positive post of the battery; attach the black lead to a good clean ground, and attach the red wire to a terminal that is powered when the switch is set to ON and/or ACC.  This red wire is a problem.  Alpine quite reasonably asks that it be connected to a terminal that is hot both when the key is the ON and in the ACC position.  Unfortunately, the Interstate inherited its wiring harness from the Standard and the Tourer, neither of which had an ACC switch position.  The bottom line here is that the Interstate does not really have a standard implementation of an ACC circuit.  Yes, there are devices such as the radio that are "live" in both the ON and ACC switch positions.  However, Honda does not seem to give access to such leads.
If you do not have any other accessories attached to your bike, you can attach the red wire to the White/Black (W/Bl) wire available as a female connector in that black wiring boot under the right side cover.  Unfortunately, that "ACC" wire Honda is so proud of is live ONLY when the key is in the ON position.  Your CD changer will work great, just not with the switch in the ACC switch position.  So, when you are out in the boonies with your main squeeze, and you want a bit of music to set the mood, the CD player is not going to work unless you turn the switch to ON.  Sadly, the headlights will also come on.  I suspect the presence of the headlights will cause all sorts of power sources to run down, including the one on the bike.
There is a solution to this problem, in fact there are many solutions to this problem, but I don’t feel comfortable advocating surgery on your bikes electrical system here.  If you wish to EMAIL me about this, I will tell you, with disclaimers, how I implemented the ACC power to the changer.
The rest of the wiring is a no-brainer.
Locate the connector that attaches the radio antenna to the radio.  It is a long black connector in that spaghetti under the right side cover.  Take it apart and connect the female antenna lead from the RF modulator to the male half of that original connection, and do the analogous thing with the male lead from the RF box.  All this is doing is running the antenna through the RF modulator.  When the CD player is running it will assert its output as an FM modulated signal into the radio at one of the available frequencies, specifically the one you specified, or at 87.7 MHz if you left the default.  When the CD unit is inactive, the RF box will be passive and the signal from the antenna will go through to the radio as it always has.
Finally insert the two large multi-pin connectors into the RF box.  One connector is on the cable from the CD changer in the trunk and the other is on the cable that leads to the controller unit that you will mount on the steering head.
With the RF modulator box all wired up, place it at about a 30 degree angle from vertical and slide it down into the waiting compartment so that the big multi-pin connectors go into the "well" at the bottom front of the compartment.  The reason to do it this way is that the connector for the steering head CD control unit is very long and sticks out more than an inch vertically from the end of the RF box.  The above angle will allow that long connector to be accommodated by the “well” at the front of the box.  Pull the extra changer cable back into the trunk and tidy up the cable routing going to the rear of the bike.  Fasten the cables firmly under the frame clamps.
Now, make it as neat as you can in and around the RF box.  I used sponge rubber and Velcro to secure the box in place.  OK, go ahead, turn it on and see how it works

(3) The CD Controller
Route the cable for the controller neatly up the frame.  You will probably want to snap off that triangularly shaped panel up near the front of the frame and take the cable through that area.  Then, lash this cable to existing cables in the same area and then go around back of the triple clamp and come in under that rubber sheet back of the handlebars.  Be creative!  
Remember, the cable must have a bit of slack.  Test it by turning the steering head from stop to stop.  

The best way to cover this unit in bad weather is still a work in progress.  For the moment, a plastic bag at the ready is the plan.  I hope I can do better!
(6/24/00) Our friends at Sierra Electronics have come to the rescue.  They now produce a CD Changer for the Gold Wing and a supporting product for that unit is a protective pouch for the control unit.  It is available from Sierra, part #BPD-CD, at a cost of $20 (call 1-800-338-6938).  It seems well constructed and I was told that it blocks UV radiation and hence should keep the heat down on the control unit.  The only quibble I have is that the plastic is a bit cloudy, but making a plastic that will resist UV radiation and not deteriorate is a hard problem and maybe the cloudiness is the price we have to pay.  This cover is pictured at the right; click on the thumbnail for a larger picture.

Finally, put your bike back together, load your player with 6 of your favorite CD's, and ride off in the sunset.

John C. Marshall
Hurricane, UT
02/13/01

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