Taking my time in modifying the Strada, thinking options over, a couple of things arrived in the mail during the week and I spent some $$ at the local shop (Bikemart). Time to potter in the Bike Cave. I’d already added my FTYP (Featherweight Top Yoke Plug) to stop all the crap getting down there. A Nomadic rack, all the way from California. The bloody postage on this US$99 item was nearly US$60 ! It weighs 360 FTYPs. The old rack was only 166 FTYPs. Beautiful quality and fit. I intend to mount 2 Rotopax L-Brackets on it to hang a 7.8litre fuel pod on each side. That’ll give almost 30litres of capacity, which should allow a range of 600kms @ 5l/100km. I’m being conservative with fuel consumption as some of the trips in this bike’s future will be sandy (so thirsty) & remote (so some reserve is sensible). I’ll line the fuel pods with heat-proof tape near the exhausts, and they’ll serve double-duty as pannier mounts for Andy Strapz Pannierz. The rear shock may need an upgrade to cope with the weight, as there’ll be a swag back there too. Put the Radguard on too. I settled on a Kriega US10 pack as a basis for a water and dustproof camera tank-bag. Cut-up a slab of foam lining, which I’d kept from some long-forgotten delivery. Add a bit of Shoe-Glue to keep the foam ‘separators’ in place, and Bob’s your uncle. A nice fit and easy access to the camera. I like the white interior lining – no more Black Hole of Calcutta J The tripod, shutter remote & spare batteries fit into the top zipped pocket. Had to adapt the supplied tankbag fittings a bit, but it turned out neatly and is secure. I like it so much I’ve ordered another set of tankbag fittings so the Kriega can be mounted onto the Bender (its BMW tankbag is pretty ordinary). A tool tube made from $11 of stormwater pipe fittings, 30cm cut off a piece of pipe lying around, plumbers glue, and a few coats of silver spray-paint (not my first colour of choice, but it was all I had). An Altrider bashplate is on its way, and stainless-steel hose straps will be used to strap the tube to it. This is the next job. Another cheap & cheerful mod, made from 4mm plastic garden edging, shaped with tinsnips, then moulded into a curve by gently clamping it with a small sash clamp and putting against a sunny wall on one of our recent 40degree (C) days. The front mudguard will need to come off to fit it properly, and the wheel needs to come off to do that, so it's next weekend's job.
I had some issues on mine. My throttle cable was being pinched by the brake line and the headstock. More info here. Started posting about it here: http://www.advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=22111226&postcount=1371 Finally sorted it out here: http://www.advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=22116909&postcount=1392 I had several posts in between with videos of symptoms, etc. My throttle was "bouncing". It seems the cable was pinched just enough to shake the throttle body open and shut with the engine vibrations.
Good stuff!! And while I had a look over those ADV posts, I tripped over this pic of yours: Your finger is pointing at the front brake line joiner, which joins the flexible hose with the fixed tubing that runs to the ABS unit. Another one of those joiners is underneath the cable-tie. On my bike, that top joiner was located about 1.25" back from where your finger is touching the headstock, the front flexible line to the master cylinder was also twisted/ rotated behind the headlight shell with the banjo-elbow pointing to the front axle when the bolt was released. (making the line even shorter as it was curled severly when it was all assembled). No surprise I had all that trouble fitting the high bars/ risers. Btw, those joiners are machine-crimped, NOT screwed.
Glad to know you got it sorted out. I feel like Husky intentionally took the worst path possible when cable routing just to mess with us.
I've re-checked my throttle cable and found no problem, as I'll describe soon. One thing I got from reading all of the posts related to moving bars around is that everyone's installation has been a little different. I remember this coming up when I was installing barbacks on a BMW K bike. We talked about it - some people needed new clutch cables, some people had to re-route things. We concluded that it made a big difference who was on the station putting cable ties on various things at the factory that day...Dieter or Detleff...
Bought some cheap 10W LED lights on ebay. They only cost about $25 each. 60° flood or 30° spot pattern. I bought 2 of each. They're not super bright, but certainly add to the stock headlight on the Terra. First I tried it with 2 flood pattern. They give a nice white light which fills in the gaps the on the stock lowbeam. Tonight I tried 1 flood and 1 spot. After seeing the difference I think I'll just put 2 spots on and aim them to each side of the main high beam. For now I've wired them in to operate regardless if the headlights are on low or high beam and a switch mounted on the handlebars. For mounts I went to my local hardware and found a couple of 90° brackets. I cut off 1 segment from the vertical and 2 from the horizontal and drilled out the holes to 6mm and mounted behind the indicators Due to the mirror mount also holding the clutch lever in place, and using the factory handguards, I was a bit limited for switch mounting space. Can't get the switch close enough to the switchblock to operate it with hand still on the left grip. At some stage I might have a closer look at the switch block to see how I can fit a switch into that blank next to the highbeam switch.
Nev, I've been eyeballing the same mounting position for a while now. I've been sitting on a set of lights for months and haven't gotten around to installing them. I did get as far as running the wiring when I did my heated grips install. I'm happy to see that you successfully installed your set there. Now I know for sure it can be done.
Regarding that mounting position. It looks to be a bit of a weird setup that they've used. Probably too hard to get a bracket and welded nut in behind there, so it looks like they've just created a cavity in the headlight surround, and then push in a threaded gromit which will grip into the plastic around it when in use, thereby holding the indicator in place. The indicator will probably put no strain on it at all. This will definitely put more strain on it. I really would have been happier if I could have got into the back side of it and put a nut on the screw. I used screws 5mm longer than stock. By having the light mounted as much as possible over the top of the screw, I'm hoping that any vibration will not want to make the lights bounce from side to side, and therefore not try to rip the threaded gromit out of the headlight surround. Next week I'm taking the bike on the overnight ferry to Tasmania for a week of riding. That should put the setup through it's paces.
I installed my auxiliary lights on the hand guards. With the ABS Terra, the hand guards need extra spacers to fully clear the brake line. I used a couple shims from the variable height risers I took off my Tenere. They now double as mountings for the lights. Only downside of this is that you can't point the lights more left or right. But the aim was pretty much spot on for me, so I'll live with it.
Motolights installed. So I've been sitting on a broken set of Motolights for a while. They came with a set of fork strap mounts that were damaged in a crash. They came to me with LED bulbs free from an inmate on ADV. The strap mounts and light base were damaged one one side. I figured I could tap new threads into everything and make them work, but the straps were for a 2" diameter, meaning they weren't for USD forks.. So I had been eyeballing the turn bolt with an L-bracket. But the base of the Motolights was 11/16", which would require a huge bracket, and using a die to thread the 11/16" side, which I did not have. Then it hit me. I used to have a heated grip switch on the side of my headlight housing. But I replaced that with a variable potentiometer placed in the back of the housing. Leaving me with a hole that has been plugged for a long time. So I tossed the Motolight bases back in the box and took some high temp grill paint to the scuffed up light housings. While things were drying, I drilled the hole out to 11/16", and another one on the other side to match. I had a little bit of a clearance issue here that was solved by shifting the potentiometer a quarter inch. I figured since the original mounts used compression to keep the lights in place, that I could do the same here. So I simply secured the lights with a hose clamp on the inside. I already had a set of wires run into the headlight housing from my Fuzeblock in anticipation of this install. I'm not quite sure how I want to switch the setup, but the stock Motolight switch was not the option I wanted. So in the meantime, I just wired them straight into my harness. So for now, the lights are always on if the bike is own. I'll sort out a switch option later. All closed up. And with the lights on. I have no experience with these lights, but the LED bulb claims 330 Lumens. That doesn't seem huge to me, but I have no point of reference. I've never run auxiliary lights on any bike before. Hopefully they will fill in the gaps.
I had an old folding shifter I cut the folder off and drilled, taped and bolted to the original shifter. I straighted the end of the shifter and cut it to length. Yhis is what I ended up with.
Another option for lights, made from 2mm stainless & mounted direct to the triples. Stainless is a bit of work but the result is super sturdy & well worth the effort. View attachment 37983
If I had swivel/adjustable mounts for mine, I would have done precisely that. That was my preferred mounting option. However, the Motolights didn't give me much of an option in their current condition. And since they were free, I wanted to keep it a $0 mod. The triple is undoubtedly the best mounting option in my opinion though. Mounting them on the handguards leaves them too exposed in the event of a drop. Mounting them directly on the lower forks puts you at risk of fork damage from a minor spill. The triple tree mount is simply the best position in terms of height, safety, and simplicity.
Got distracted by shiny lights and ordered a LED headlight assembly to replace the H4 halogen. More to follow when I get it.
If you mount your bracket directly to the clamp, as in your pic, do you need to substitute longer bolts? I ask because I looked at this option yesterday and noted that not much bolt protruded through on the inside of the clamps. Can you lose 2mm and still have all the thread engaged? Another option for me, since I've installed Kouba Link and dropped the front end on the tubes, is to use an aftermarket clamp above the stock triple. Any thoughts on that? Certainly it would be easier to make a little bracket as you have done.
billet fork tube clamps, can be purchased by fork tube diameter, Stuperstores has them. If your installing at the cap, pinching should not be an issue
