Post Winter Update

Well I thought I’d better put an update on the blog just so it doesn’t look like we have dropped off the face of the earth.

Well not surprisingly given the excellent weather of late, we have not been out on our bikes at all this year so far. There have been a few days were we could have gotten out but on those occasions we were busy doing something else that needed good weather to do. Also because of the bad weather I have not had a look at the K1300s and its slight sticking throttle issue. This fault has also meant that I haven’t had it MOT’d so as the tax was running out I have had to declare it SORN at the moment. I think next time I tax it I will only get six months to avoid having to SORN it again.

I also haven’t done the valve check on the ZX-9R yet either but that isn’t mega urgent and so can wait till later on in the year. Another job I also have to do is install the old Autocom unit onto Helen’s new Z1000SX, I have looked at the installation though and know exactly where and how I’m going to do it. The radio thankfully just fits under the seat and I have already installed its cable when I had the seat unit apart to install the new luggage racks.

For Christmas we decided to buy ourselves a new SatNav for the bikes. The car one that we have used previously did the job but has started having issues recently. The two main issues are that the internal battery is completely shot. This means that if the power connection to it comes loose for even a second it switched off and took a good 30 seconds to come boot back up. This caused us massive issues when we where away in the Vosges last year. The other issue is that for some reason when using the Bluetooth option to link the sound up with the Autocom the SatNav kept crashing, it never did this on the VFR so I don’t know whether the SatNav is at fault or it is a strange issue with the BMW. Anyway we decided to get a bike specific SatNav this time and so opted for the Garmin 350LM. It isn’t as feature rich as my car SatNav but is obviously waterproof and the screen is friendlier for gloved hands. Initial thoughts are that the mounting system is excellent (well they are RAM mounts) and the Garmin will suit are needs perfectly. The other added bonus is the Basecamp software, which will be good for planning the routes on. It looks like what route you plan on Basecamp the SatNav will follow to the letter. This didn’t always happen with the car SatNav as it would sometimes change the route between waypoints on the fly. Once we have tested the Garmin on the bikes I will be able to give a better more rounded review in the future.

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Helen’s New Luggage Rack

Yesterday I fitted Helen’s new Givi pannier rails and top box rack. Kawasaki don’t offer the option of a 3 box setup, you either have panniers or a top box but not both. Helen got the bike from Kawasaki with the panniers already fitted. When she bought the bike we were well aware that Givi made Kawasaki’s panniers at that time and so these panniers would fit on the Givi rails. The original pannier rails are really ugly and spoil the look of the bike when no luggage is fitted to it. The new rails are fitted with quick release bolts that allow the main parts of the rails to be removed from the bike when no luggage is  required. As part of this new rail system you can also fit a top box rack as well., due to the way it is fitted this has to be fitted to the bike at all times. If you don’t want a top box than you require another kit of parts to be able to fit the rails instead.

So I set about removing the Kawasaki rails first, one of the first bolts I tried to undo sheared off straight away. Looks like whoever fitted it, put it on far too tightly as the nut was rounded slightly and the allen key hex was also rounded. Fortunately I managed to get the nut and the broken off bolt thread out from the other side. Once that was out of the way I then removed the rest of the rails. The next problem came when I had to remove the bracket (different bracket for new kit) from under the seat. Givi had no instructions on how to actually get at the bolts to install this item. I managed to find some instruction elsewhere and then came across my next hurdle which was in the form of a pair of security screws. It would appear they were protecting access to the ECU, but they also stopped you dropping the under tail tray to get at the bracket. This is where the Dremel came to the rescue as I cut a groove in the top bolt and was then able to remove it was a flat bladed screwdriver. I didn’t need to remove the lower bolt as the under tray was now free. I then replaced the bracket under the tail and also had to install a new number plate and indicator bracket. The indicators have to be installed lower than on the original setup as they would get in the way of the panniers being fitted. Kawasaki had already extended the wires for the  other rails so that had saved me a small job, but I still had to disconnect all the wiring to change over the indicator brackets. Once they were all installed back on the bike and working I could then install the actual rails and rack. This was quite straight forward as Givi’s instructions were very well set out. I had no problems installing the rest of the kit and everything lined up perfectly once put together. The panniers now don’t stick out as far as they did on the Kawasaki rails and the whole luggage set up looks miles better. Also once the luggage is off and the rails removed the bike looks miles better as well. The photo above shows the bike with the rails removed, the red circles denote where the quick release rails locate. Once both rails are installed you then install a quick release bar between both rails that sits just behind the top of the number plate, this bar makes the rails very rigid indeed.

For anyone interested here is a list of the equipment that we installed to achieve this set up.
Givi PLXR4100 rapid release rails for V35 Monokey panniers.
Givi 4100FZ Monokey Top Box rack & M5 Plate
Givi V47NN Tech Top Box
Kawasaki Panniers (made by Givi and are V35 Panniers)

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