V649HP-Kawasaki's new gravel runner

The weather has changed a bit today. Looks like I'll need to get the snow shovel out. Glad the shake down cruise went well.

-David

the new LED lights are all tied in to their respective circuits, nice and bright, even in daylight. at night, really bright.



i'm liking the amber side markers too.



for their size, the new LED brake lights are super bright.

The rear view...

The symmetry is beautiful, the grab handle and the wolfman rack some how accentuate this a lot better. Whats more... your grab handle also serves as a hard mount for a top rack with enough seat for an occasional pillion too. That's unbeatable!

The bling - i believe you - better be visible now than sorry later.

You have already inspired me JD and you are pretty good at making sure that effect is a lasting one :)

edit:
I wouldn't be ashamed of being a copy cat. Some day you might as well see a Ninja named after JD in India.

it's tough to add lights to a bike that don't in some way detract from the overall aesthetic. the lights have to function to be seen, but also need to integrate with the overall design. i wanted the lights protected and the mounts less visible, takes some thinking about how to make it all work, especially with three sets of new lights.

a cloned rat bike in India, man, we're going to need some photos.

LED accent lighting tucked up in all the holes around the bike.

yup, accent lighting.

my only regret is not getting those lights on there sooner. kept the big OEM signals too, i think i'll try to find some brighter LED lamps for those. then i'll call Sanjoh and get some bigger ADVmonsters, i need to upgrade to 767 landing lights.

...so i was on the way home at dusk Saturday after a short 100 miler, lows and highs on, 44s on, the new LED running lights on, and a woman pulled half a car length out on the highway before hitting the brakes at the start of a left hand turn in front of me.

might have been all those lights, i'll take 'em.

Love the lights!

Many believe that loud pipes save lives, I believe that bright lights go one step further and save adrenaline. Especially the rider's adrenaline! When cager's see the bike at a distance and don't do stupid things, we don't have to react - or leave pucker marks on the seat...

Well done!
Dave


Sent from my iPad2

hey, me too.

cagers going freakin' nuts, gotta ramp up the defenses...or i guess they're called "accents", whatever.

long day trip coming up, multistate night run back to the shop. i'd rather have them than not.

Are those tail lights ADVmonsters LED 44 with red filter or any other? If so how did you wire them up?

no, the 44s are pointed out the front.

the three new sets of LED lights, plus new white LED strip light for the license plate, are all just commonly available commercial truck/trailer lights.

these lights are Grote brand, but all the light manufacturers have similar lights, including metric equivalents available outside the USA. not all lights of the same size are equal, with the difference being the LED type and count per light. the more the better.

the round lights are Grote Hi Count, and you purchase the assembly in three parts, light, mounting grommet, and pigtail. the cost per assembly is $10-12USD depending on where they're purchased. the grommet mounting hole is listed at 2 5/16" for this brand, and a 2 1/4" hole saw works fine. do NOT undersize or oversize the hole, the grommet will not fit correctly.

the LED brake lights are Grote Micro Nova, and come with the grommet and pigtail as a single sealed unit. these lights are very bright for their size, and the instructions list a 3/4" mounting hole. i found the 3/4" hole slightly undersize, and enlarged it with a step drill bit. try fit the light, you don't want this hole oversized either.

i had a damaged OEM license plate light from an ER6, so i cut the factory pigtail off this light and connected the new marker lights and license plate light. this pigtail plugs right into the factory wiring harness.

the new LED brake lights were connected to the harness at the OEM tail light section of the wiring harness.

bike finally all back together, except for the gravel guard, which was removed so i could think about some options. i needed to clean all the baked on mud off the headers too. wiping everything down, i found the right front motor mount bolt loose again. this bolt was installed with red thread locker and still came loose, there must be some extreme stresses at work.



couldn't resist, i had to turn off the shop lights...



can ya see me now.

the little custom fiberglass tail works real well too.



strong and durable assembly, no more plastic tabs holding things together.


oh yeah, road trip...

Well you won't need to hide this horse behind the barn. Looks sharp.

I suspect if you get in a wreck, the whole bike will come apart before that tail piece does.

-David

i think you could lift the rear of the bike off the ground by gripping the rear fender assembly.

road trip...depart in the dark, return in the dark, now i get to test things. a little gravel, but all graded, so i won't miss the guard.

you're better off starting a thread in the FM parts section, it will get more exposure there.

not a bad price, but i don't think it's all that worthwhile to swap in a set of new forks less than a 46mm late model on these motos. these builds end up at 400#, and require some beef on the front end, especially if run hard. if it was a 48mm WP front, i'd buy them myself.

Thanks, and will do

Welcome aboard mossb8. JD is too gracious, you are spamming his build/maintenance thread I'd recommend deleting your post, take it to the Flea Market.

well, gracious is free, but there's always a price to be paid for rude.


what's this "maintenance thread" all about? heck, i did show ya a cool way to mount some ADVmonsters on your rat bike, ya know, just in case you're able to source them.

mounted my black Wolfman bags...



i get my Wolfman products from Berg Briggs at Backroads Moto

http://brmoto.com/

Briggs' shop fabricates all the mounts that Wolfman sells with their products, but Berg also sells the full line of other Wolfman products. he's an ADV vendor, and will discount a little for forum members. a good guy to deal with for anything Wolfman.

i had two Wolfman bottle holders, and i had Berg send me two more. it looks like Wolfman increased the ID a little, a good thing, the earlier version was too tight on most 1L bottles.

JD, the new tail looks good. The bike looked good in white, but I understand going back to red, they are faster in that color.

if you liked the bike in that old while, you would really like this new white, much cleaner and brighter white. that new red on the tank is one of the fastest reds i've ever encountered, way way fast.

as a Kawasaki ptwin builder yourself, i'm sure you've come to appreciate the capabilities of these bikes. the little day trip yesterday was 619 miles of secondary roads, gravel, and I system. everything from creeping through mud in 1st, to 80mph cruise, riding in ten hours daylight, six hours dark. just a solid performer in so many areas.

i did have another left turner incident last night, couldn't see who the driver was. i'm not sure what they finally see before slamming the brakes, but it might be that new amber LED marker light, it's plenty bright and stands out.