NaTalie's Rehab Has Begun

[Brillot2000]

Both the LED Driving Lights and the tubing mounting brackets came in the last couple of days.

At first, I was not too impressed with the tubing mounting kit that I selected as it did not give me a straightforward solution. The mounting kit came with two different mount piece sizes for a wide range of options. Unfortunately, nothing of them would work very easily with the light configuration that I choose.

After spending some time staring at everything for a while. Here's my solution to my dilemma.

1. Drill and tap of the shorter mount pieces to convert it into a mounting interface.



2. Then screw in the mounting bolt from the light assembly mount bracket and then bolt the piece to the installed mounting clamp.



3. The interfacing piece not gets me pivot point to aid with aiming the light.



4. With very thing assembled loosely, looks like that this concept will be a solid solution to the dilemma.



I trip to the hardware store tomorrow will take care of the fine details and will help to solidify this solution into something more permanent. Then I can move on to wiring them up.

 

[Sunny]

looks like the guards are installed, pics plz

 

[Brillot2000]

looks like the guards are installed, pics plz

Patience Grasshopper.

I need to get the hardware later on today to mount everything permanently. Then I have to pull all the Tupperware to do the wiring. Then I can install the last group of graphics.

Once everything is back together, then it will photo shot day. Just hang in there a bit longer.

 

[Sunny]

Patience Grasshopper.

I need to get the hardware later on today to mount everything permanently. Then I have to pull all the Tupperware to do the wiring. Then I can install the last group of graphics.

Once everything is back together, then it will photo shot day. Just hang in there a bit longer.

 

[Brillot2000]

Well, I called off working on NaTalie yesterday as my nephew called in a favor. His worker needed to have the headlight assembly replaced on his R6. It was supposed to be an easy job and money. Nope, aftermarket assembly with LED Halo accents. The provided instructions are not fit to blow your nose on. I got to reverse engineer this assembly and get it working this morning. I’m never going to work on one of these bikes again. Everything is a shoehorn fit.


Progress and work postponed on NaTalie.

 

[Brillot2000]

Well, I called off working on NaTalie yesterday as my nephew called in a favor. His worker needed to have the headlight assembly replaced on his R6. It was supposed to be an easy job and money. Nope, aftermarket assembly with LED Halo accents. The provided instructions are not fit to blow your nose on. I got to reverse engineer this assembly and get it working this morning. I’m never going to work on one of these bikes again. Everything is a shoehorn fit.


Progress and work postponed on NaTalie.

Well, that nightmare is over. The lighting is functioning as intended. All its Tupperware is back in place, another nightmare on its own.

I am going to take a short rest and then get to my Sunday house chores afterward. I will see if I can at least start to pull NaTalie's Tupperware after those have been completed.

 

[Sunny]

Both the LED Driving Lights and the tubing mounting brackets came in the last couple of days.

4. With very thing assembled loosely, looks like that this concept will be a solid solution to the dilemma.

View attachment 16676

I trip to the hardware store tomorrow will take care of the fine details and will help to solidify this solution into something more permanent. Then I can move on to wiring them up.

This looks neat, but any thoughts on mounting the light on the forks... this way the light follows your wheel... might be helpful in corners...

i think a few people here have mounted the lights on the bolt that holds the round reflector....

 

[Phil Tarman]

This looks neat, but any thoughts on mounting the light on the forks... this way the light follows your wheel... might be helpful in corners...

i think a few people here have mounted the lights on the bolt that holds the round reflector....

I'm one person who mounted lights on the fender (not the forks). I used the bolt that holds the fender itself, not the one that holds the reflector. Back in the day (2010), Twisted Throttle had a mounting kit for the NT that replaced the factory bolt with a longer one, a spacer, and a bracket. After many miles the bracket died of metal fatigue and I fabricated a new bracket out of a flat steel strip that had holes in it. I basically made a u-shaped bracket and painted it flat black.



What I like about this mounting is that it creates a highly visible triangle that is attention-getting day or night. When I got the bike, I lived in a small town and a lot of people knew me because I was the United Methodist minister. I had many people tell me how much they notice me after I mounted the Denalis in this location. It took me several months to figure out that my headlights were aimed first way too low and then way too high. Once I got the headlights aimed properly, I rarely got flashed by oncoming drivers when I was using low beam headlight. At night I could see a good ways down the road, and the Denalis did a good job of lighting up the shoulders.

As far as pointing around the corner when turning, they don't help that much because as you lean the inside light is pointing too low. In addition, when you turn the front wheel isn't pointing very much around the corner. Nevertheless, I like the total effect of the fender mounted location.

I haven't ridden Horse at night. His Denalis are physically smaller and I have no idea how they compare in terms of light output. Frosty had mounted them on a bar attached to the bottom of the fairing.

 

[ARKNT]

Mounting stuff like running lights can be tricky. On my NT I mounted Denali 2's under the tip over wings. That was pretty straightforward and I liked the way they worked.
I got some Denali 2's for my new Versys and it has been a project for me. I built the mounting bracket to go just under the front fairing. The Versys has switched power up front so I thought that would be easy but the D2 is not really set up for that. It is a plug and play installation but from the battery area. There just wasn't room up front for all the harness and connectors. I am modifying it to fit the space. It is good this is my bike and I am not running a business to make money. Quite a bit of time but when finished it should be like I like it.

Brad

 

[Brillot2000]

This looks neat, but any thoughts on mounting the light on the forks... this way the light follows your wheel... might be helpful in corners...

i think a few people here have mounted the lights on the bolt that holds the round reflector....

To quote Austin Powers. “The sort a thing ain’t my bag, baby .”

 

[Brillot2000]

Good news, I was able to get the Tupperware off of NaTalie and wiring up the new lights this evening.

I then was able did some alignment testing using my garage door as a target.









These images do not really show the correct color of these lights. The new light look yellow, in fact they are not.

 

[Brillot2000]

I was able to get all the Tupperware back into NaTalie after testing the lights. Then I started to put the last group of the graphics on. There’s still a group of them still left. I was too worn out to this think about how use these.

The last two days have been brutal dealing with that R6 for my nephew. I finished early to take needed shower and to unwind.

Here’s a teaser image for you all to continue peak your curiosity.

 

[Phil Tarman]

Bruce, it's hard to tell how your lights are aligned from your pictures. My procedure has been to align the sharp cutoff on the low beam at a height equal to the height of low beam bulb on the bike when my weight is on the bike. This assumes that your driveway is flat (not necessarily horizantal) from where the bike is to the door. When aligned that way the low beam cutoff hits most sedans just below the bottom of the rear window and the front window if they're coming toward you.

I realized tonight that Monday is a federal holiday, so the earliest you'll get the HMW stickers will be Tuesday. I'd think that they should be there by Tuesday or Wednesday...unless the mail slowdown is aimed at 1st class personal mail.

 

[Brillot2000]

I really need to take the bike to large empty parking lot after dark to do the alignment properly. This method usually works and gets me 80% there.

The stickers you sent will get when they get here. The first group got lost in the mail.

 

[Brillot2000]

ATTENTION PICTURES COMING VERY SOON.

I was able to take a group of photos this morning. However, I want to clean them up in Photoshop before I present them all to the public. It's all about the presentation.

 

[Macka]

I have a pair of cheaper LED lights mounted on the mudguard bolts. They look quite like the Denalis.
They are 'fog" type lenses so they spray the light around a bit and do provide some illumination of the inside corner when turning.
There is no "hot spot" and the pattern is very even in front of me.
I have them wired so that they come on automatically with high beam but can also be on with low beam if I so choose.
I find that they fill in the dark patch in front of the bike out to about 15 metres.
They don't really help me beyond that other than to pick out the distant roadside signs much better than the headlight does.
They are easily visible from a long distance head-on and do provide triangulation.

Macka

 

[Brillot2000]

To all my patient followers. Your patience has finally paid off.

NaTalie's Rehab is complete and her reveal can be found on this thread, NaTalie's Rehab Reveal - Meet DIVA!!! - Brillot2000

 

[Phil Tarman]

Ta-da!

 

[Brillot2000]

Ta-da!

Did you watched the video montage yet on the Reveal Thread yet?

I’d like know what you think of the presentation. :unsure:

I gave special thanks to you and a few others at the end of the video.

 

[Phil Tarman]

I loved the video, Bruce. Even though I don't deserve any special thanks unless the HMW stickers get there. The music fit Diva perfectly, too!

(Totally tangential -- but back in the early 70s I had friends whose son had played with Edger Winter's band and Edger used to stay at their house fairly often.)