Fender Extender and LED Taillight

[AncientMariner]

Increased conspicuity is a good thing. The Yankee Beemers used to have a logo sticker that was 4" x 4-3/4" and it showed up great. One of our members, The Ritalin Poster Boy was able to dig one up for me and I wanted a suitable display place for it. A quick search of the usual accesory vendors failed to uncover a suitable fender extender, so I made one out of sheet aluminum (Lowes). I cut and folded it to size, leaving space for a BMW Supplemental LED Taillight (Police Part) to come in a later farkling episode.

Here is the rough fabrication installed to check clearances, etc. The grey rectangle represents space for the futue LED light. As a result of this fitting, I went back and shortened the design by an inch.



Here is the extender with a hole cut for the future cable. Note the rubber grommet to prevent the edge of the hole from chafing. The clerk in my local Radio Shack had no idea what such a grommet was. Once again, I secured my needed motorcycle parts from Lowes.



On one of my several trips back to Dunbar's Eurocycle to "look at" the Light, my MasterCard slipped out of my pocket and I inadvertantly bought it and the Deluxe Harness that went with it. There is no specific cable for the R1200 R. After all, this is a Police Part and I guess cops to don't get issued Roadsters. Too bad. Anyway, the one for the K1200GT works with some minor modification. Basically plug and play. Part No.s 63000445578 for the Light and 61000445580 for the Harness. The box looks like this:



And the completed fabrication with light installed looks like this:



You can see that it wouldn't do to wait for the light.

Bruce

[xprof]

Bruce, that's just beautiful work. Now you've got me thinking I might need something like that. Do tell us how it works in the rain. Not that it ever rains in Santa Barbara...

[Oaktown]

Nice work Bruce. How exactly does the light function? Flashes during braking, decel flashes (like the Kisan Tailblazer) or simply lights up during braking? Thanks.

[AncientMariner]

When you apply the brakes, the light flashes 4 times and then stays on until brakes are released. Otherwise off.

[jess]

Resurrecting an older thread to make a slight correction: the part number for the R12R harness is 61000445580. The number above is missing a 5, which makes the parts department people furrow their brow at you.

[AncientMariner]

You mean to tell us that the factory label had the wrong part number printed on it.

Unbelievable. Luckily, it still fit and works great from what I have been told.

Bruce

[blueviewlaguna]

My dealer insists that only the old-style non-canbus supplemental brake light can be used on the R1200R - it looks the same as the Canbus type, but uses a square old-style plug and includes the harness. They tried to make the canbus version work with any of the 5 separate harnesses with no luck - its a major dealership here and the master tech and service manager struggled for 2 hours over 2 visits before giving up. The non-canbus version connects to the battery directly, then uses trigger wires to the brake and license plate lamp (canbus will shut the tail [running lamp] off if it detects the running light trigger load there). I ended up with a running light function from the supplemental LED as well as the brake light function (4 flashes, then solid).

I do have the LED tail lamp from the K1300 on my bike - not sure if this is the reason that the Canbus supplemental LED could not be made to work...

[jess]

You mean to tell us that the factory label had the wrong part number printed on it.

Unbelievable. Luckily, it still fit and works great from what I have been told.

No clue. I accidentally bought the GS version (same unit, different harness) so had to special-order the correct harness. Had I not had the partial number from this thread, I would have been totally lost.

I'm looking forward to getting it working, as a friend of mine has retrofitted one on an Aprilia Mana and it looks great. Very visible.

[celticus]

The last time I remember having a discussion on rear fenders it was about how to make the rear fender smaller.
Looks like a nice garage ancient one.

Mark

[dbrick]

Bruce,

I was vectored here from the current thread on fender extension - interesting! You say the supplemental brake lights fits "with minor modification." Blueviewlaguna, OTOH, said his dealer couldn't make it work at all.

Can you give some more detail? How does it connect, and what mod was required?

[jess]

How does it connect, and what mod was required?

(Jumping in, even though you weren't asking me...)

I got my LED brake light working without any modification. The metal plate that it came with bolts behind the license plate, and the wiring harness plugs into existing connections on the bike. In my case, there was a power feed that was inserted between the BMW power outlet on the left-hand-side and the factory harness, with the LED brake light harness having the appropriate connectors to go between. A second line into the LED brake light harness had a trigger wire that taps into the factory tail light fixture. It was a relatively easy install, once I figured out how it was supposed to be connected.

[AncientMariner]

My minor modification was to slit the wrapper on the wiring harness about an inch to allow a little more length available on the trigger wire, which goes to the brake light.

I also wrapped the connection between the auxiliary light and the cable with Scotch rubber tape because it hangs out right behind the tire. When I went to salvage the light from my late Beautiful Blue Roadster (RIP) I had a devil of a time removing the rubber tape.

Thinking of tackling this project on my new Classic Black Roadster this afternoon. As ShineySide pointed oput, reinstalling the same farkle is kind of a chore.

[celticus]

Well, I think it is good to have an extend fender in a bike. But sometime there is bad effect in some people to see it. If I were you won’t get or put an extended fender in my bike maybe I will change the tail light in the led light so it can more visible at night.

?????????

Mark

[mogu83]

Well, I think it is good to have an extend fender in a bike. But sometime there is bad effect in some people to see it. If I were you won’t get or put an extended fender in my bike maybe I will change the tail light in the led light so it can more visible at night.

First day on the list. Welcome aboard.
How about a picture of your bike and some profile information, sometimes has bad effect if a person doesn't know who's he's talking to.

[deilenberger]

Harry,

At first reading his posting - it rang out as "spam" to me.. there are spam bots that look for similar subjects on other forums, or even the same forum, then post to a thread. The spam is typically the link in their sig.

This has all the signs, except he also posted in another LED light thread.. and that was somewhat coherent. I suspect this is a non-native-English speaking poster. I don't understand his sig link since it leads to a silly WordPress blog page on TV shows... with quoted material from other places. The only thing I can see that might be a money maker is - the WordPress blog is peppered with Google Adword listings, and that might make it a Pay-Per-Click farm.

Color me as puzzled as everyone else, but like you said - a photo of his bike might clear this right up. As might a name, and some other info like where he's from.

[2wheelfish]

Forgive me for opening up a long lost topic, but hey at least I used the search function first....

I would like to add this sipplemental brake light to my 2009 R12R, the dealer says it takes some work to wire it in and the also needs to be programmed into the CANbus or there will be an error light always on. Is this true? Is the install too much for a novice (I'm no wiring expert). Dealer wants close to $100, need to save some $$.

Thanks....

[mogu83]

Your dealer is correct. I think some of the guys have paid almost $100 to just have the software updated depending on what part of the country they live in.

Oops------Disregard ----- Thought we were talking about the LED taillight.

[AncientMariner]

Running the wires was not technically difficult, but a little bit of a pain. You connect to the power outlet and the rear brake light. The wires were not just the right length and required some fiddling around the brake light.

No effect on the CANBUS.

Due to the demise of my Beautiful Blue Roadster, I've installed this light twice. It not rides on my Classic Black Roadster.

[2wheelfish]

Thanks for the replies...if it doesn't affect the Canbus I'm more likely to give it a shot. Hopefully if I get in a pinch, you guys can help bail me out....

[AncientMariner]

We're here if you need us.