PROBLEM #1 How do I hide and protect this stuff from excess water and/or gear weight? 
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SOLUTION: 
Carefully tuck away the regulator over the air intake as shown. Tuck away wires too, I had to remove the factory cable ties to put them where I wanted to.
I removed the air box cover (bottom right in photo) to
make up for the area lost under seat. Notice that all that remains is the wiring above the fender. 
The picture above shows my "ghetto" cover-up back
here. I bought a piece of plumber gasket rubber sheeting and used the rear seat bolt and bracket to afix the rubber. I cut this piece of rubber fast and carelessly for
the first "fitting." It doesn't fit perfectly and I plan on re-doing this with a higher quality finished look. The cover now just hides the wires, but not too gracefully.
Update: not liking the cheesy look of the rubber, so I just taped the wires up. I may leave it until I do a whole new chopped fender. Winter project? Maybe.
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PROBLEM #2 Right now I have no rear turn signals. 
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Above you can see the new turn signals I bought. I wanted black housings to look "invisible" when looking at the bike. I installed them in one of the strut bolt
holes...[the right side clears well, the inside of the left signal rubbed on my tire after an unusual bottom-out and severed one of the wires (it also, chewed up the tire a little) (See similar rub problem I had here). Good
thing I bought an extra set of of signals! On the replacement signal, I had to cut and file the bolt threads and nut profile (that would be inside the fender) down
considerably with a hack saw taking care not to sever the wires running down the mounting bolt's center. I'm not sure if I now even have clearance in case of another major bottom out. Oh well...]
...and I brought the wire back through the hole below. They plugged right into the stock harness perfectly. I'm not crazy about the wire showing, but it is almost under
the seat and out of the way. Drilling holes didn't sound like a good idea. 
I didn't like the idea of sleek turn signals in the rear and those huge stock ones in front, so I bought a second set.
I was surprised to see an extra third wire in the bikes wiring harness in the headlight housing. My signals only come single filament (2 wires). The fronts are different
from the rears in that they have dual filaments, meaning that one filament in the turn signal is always on when the bike is on (funny,I never noticed) and the other is
activated with the turn signal switch. You can leave the hot wire to the running light wrapped in tape and do without. I plan on doing this when signal mounting
brackets I ordered arrive. I just found the 2 wires I needed by trial and error. 
Front signals on in picture above...Now, here are the tricky instructions I used to mount the new signals using the old signal brackets: This what I did. It was a real pain in the ass but in the end it turned out great:
I put the signal in the original bracket to see how short I was and eye-balled how long the opposite end bolt would
have to be so that I could join the 2 with a nut inside the original bracket. I hack sawed the bolt down to size. Test and make sure you can thread a nut on the end you just
hacked off. Then, I drilled down the head of the bolt right down the center to feed the wires through. If I remember correctly, I had to remove one of the bullet connectors on
one of the wires so they both would slip through my new bolt center hole. Once the wires were threaded this way: signal --> nut --> end bolt, I screwed the nut on the end of
the signal bolt about half way. Then, try and screw the bolt you made to the nut INSIDE the bracket! It's kinda a bitch, but you'll be able to do it. You'll only have a little room to
play with, so make sure your opposite end bolt takes up most of the distance between where the signal bolt ends and just a little room to thread. Repeat for other side! Note:
remember that you will have an extra 3rd wire in the headlight housing for front signal running lights. I don't have front running lights. It still passed inspection in NY. Just
tape and tuck it out of the way and use the ground and flasher wires. You may have to play around to find which are which. Once you get the signal to flash, it's those 2 wires you want. You will be happy once you do this. Your only other
alternative is to remove the forks and slide the orginal brackets off and use aftermarket brackets. Or leave them on holding nothing. |
PROBLEM #3 I plan on strapping down gear, but I don't have anything to hook straps on! 
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Bought Bungee Nuts 3/8"-16 from J&P Cycles.  I painted them black with gloss Rustoleum.
Click here to see how they look and the problem I had |
PROBLEM #4 Unfortunately, last summer when I repaired a broken rear turn signal, I
scratched the hell out of my rear fender. I tinkered with removing the sissy bar and got into a mess. If you plan on doing this, wedge cardboard between the loose struts and the fender to protect
the paint. You live, you learn.It wasn't that big a problem at the time because when I finally did get the struts back on, they hid most of the major (and I mean major) scratches. I
touched up the fenders with touch up paint from my car (similar color). I'm a little bummed out that the bike rear fender area is now a ("10-footer", meaning that from 10 feet away, the bike looks
good, but up close it's ugly). I say "so what" about that and I'm not going to tackle getting the bike painted right now. 
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I applied decals to my bike. Click here to see the photos. 
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