Gremlin's Tall Stories

An unusual situation I would agree, but for a while I had been thinking off making the rear of the hornet more visible. I commute a lot, up and down the motorway, around town etc., and figured the more presence the rear of the bike had, the more chance I had at not being rear ended.

Givi makes a rear stop lamp kit that directly goes into the Givi E55 top box, which is what I have on the Hornet. Rather expensive, but more visibility. In the meantime, I added some reflective tape, which was better than nothing.

Trawling www.twistedthrottle.com for various goodies for the BMW paid dividends in unexpected ways, coming across Admore Lighting (http://www.admorelighting.com/) which makes kits for various models of Givi boxes, along with more generic kits for other types of applications. For the Givi E55, a combined rear lamp, stop lamp and indicators could be had, and when applying the brake for the first time in 15 seconds, the stop lamp would flash several times before going solid. Excellent for grabbing attention, especially when traffic suddenly slows on the motorway.

I already had some for the BMW, generic strips for flat cases, and after a week or two of dodgy road conditions with misty rain (I also spend a large amount of time travelling at night) I figured the LEDs would provide some light capable of punching through mist and fog. The last hurdle was convincing the boss that the work bike needed such additional safety features, and he agreed.

Once they were landed on our fair shores (for just over $200 landed) of course I needed some spanner monkey to help me install, as the Hornet is an incredibly reliable bike, and I didn’t have any desire to change that. A call to GiJoe went out…

As always, he’s happy to help, so Saturday afternoon, I collect some ginger beer as a small form of payment, and pop round to his house right on time… a bit later than planned.

Since the Hornet is reliable… I’ve actually never taken the bike apart… couldn’t even tell you where the battery is. 6000km interval rolls around, it goes into the shop for half a day, comes out and I keep filling it with gas. Now and then I throw some more tyres and chain/sprockets its way. Fortunately, GiJoe has gone a bit further, and knows what we have to tackle to get towards the taillight.

The Givi pannier racks and top box mounts actually get in the way of removing the tail piece, but loosening it and then sliding it back and up a bit gives us enough access. We’re after the taillight wiring, so take the red lense off the back… no access, just to the bulbs. It does provide more working room. We find the wiring in the back of the tailbone type frame the Hornet has and pull it out.

A fair bit of experimentation follows, but we eventually track down each wire and what it is and which ones we’re after. The Admore Lighting kit shows off its high quality by providing posi-taps to connect into the wiring, rather than the old methods. Posi-taps (http://www.posi-lock.com/) are reasonably new (as far as I know anyway), especially to NZ, and hard to come by, but work extremely well. The link provides a quick breakdown of the variety, but we just had the posi-taps.

The existing wire goes into a groove in one end, with a spike that penetrates the sheath. The extra wire comes straight in at the other end, and once all screwed together, a strong connection is made that is easily removable, with little damage to existing wiring.

It took some guess work and some despair we had it horribly wrong (first install, and you’re never quite sure if you’re on the right path) but eventually got our wires right (I blame GiJoe – he should know better…. I know bugger all) and the kit came to life. We installed the wiring loom into the bike first, and then plugged the LED strips into it, to make sure it was working.

The instructions were nice and clear and specific to the Givi E55, describing what to cut and where to take the box apart. Four screws had the panels coming off. The strips were delicately pushed into the pre-formed holes. Two holes were necessary in provisioned places to allow wiring to pass into the box. From there, it runs up the inside to the front of the box, where another hole was drilled. This allows the quick connect/disconnect connector to plug in, which keeps the box removable if you wish.

Panels back onto the box and more testing as we put it back together ensured no surprises at the end. The wiring went mostly back into the tailbone and everything bolted back smoothly. With GiJoe’s skills, we even avoided having left over bolts.

Performance is impressive, and pictures of the process are attached, but I won’t bother attempting to make a video, as the YouTube clip shows it perfectly. Ignore the piece in the middle, as it’s a separate item.