KLX250S with bags spotted in the sunlight

By popular demand, here are some photos of the bike captured outside the garage. You should be able to get a better idea how the bike looks with the bags on it from these.

I've started working on the communications box that will mount to the rear rack and am on a hunt for certain small bits and pieces now to finish it up. I hope to make some progress this weekend.

KLX250S Adventure Make-over - Phase 4

Phase 4 began on Saturday afternoon with me in the garage as the wind howled outside. The Happy Trails SU Side Racks were looking a little bare and it was finally time to mount a set of Pelican 1550 cases sourced from Nalpak Group on them. Along with the LED tail light assembly detailed in a previous posting, I'd picked up the Happy Trails SU Puck Kit for 3/4" tubing (P/N HTPMK750-A), as seen below.

I was favorable impressed with the ruggedness of the aluminum "pucks". Hardware was included for tool less mounting/unmounting using the big plastic knobs - 2 per side. In addition, extra bolts for wrench-required mounting/unmounting were also included.

To make sure I mounted the bags in the same location on both sides, I planned to use one of the ridges on the bottom of the Pelican case as a guide rest for the tubular rack. With this in mind, I knew from trial fitting that I'd have to remove some of the plastic from the ridge opposite the guide ridge due to the width of the SU Rack. I tackled this modification on both bags using a Dremel Tool earlier in the week, as shown in the photos below.

Knowing that I needed to make sure the bags were in exactly the same location on both sides of the bike, I decided to create a template when planning the left side that I could flip it over to use as the template for the right side.

I removed the left side SU Rack and positioned it where I wanted it to be on top of the template and Pelican case. Following the instructions from Happy Trails, I then positioned the 4 "pucks" in place to maximize stability at the bottom (no forward or backward movement allowed) and to allow rotation at the top for case removal.

Upon doing this, I realized that more plastic was going to need to be removed in order to allow the puck in the lower right to mount flat to the case.

The Dremel came out again, making short work out of the additional plastic removal. Then with the rack and pucks back in place, I used the insert from a ballpoint pen to roughly mark through the bolt hole of each puck. This worked out pretty well in practice, but probably has some of you cringing.

Small pilot holes were drilled through the paper template and left side case. I then used a step drill to work my way up to a clean 5/16 inch hole for each.

A keen eye will notice that the step drill got away from me on one of the holes. Oh crap. In reality, this mistake didn't cause any harm, but I was much more careful when drilling the remaining holes.

With holes drilled and deburred, I test fit all the hardware to make sure everything was secure. Yes!

With everything looking good and feeling very solid, I flipped the template over, traced the main lines through and taped it to the side of the right side case. I used the right side rack and pucks to check everything out. With just minor variations in rack dimensions, I only had to adjust the location of one hole before drilling. No mistakes this time!

Before I mounted everything back on the bike, I took a moment to weigh everything.

• Left side Pelican 1550, mounting hardware and SU rack:  13.1 lbs.
• Right side Pelican 1550, mounting hardware and SU rack:  13.2 lbs.
• Happy Trails SU Rack "Bumper": 1.7 lbs.

That's a total of 28 extra pounds on the back of the bike, before I pack anything in. I might have to check that preload adjustment on the rear shock after all.

With the weighing done, the bags were removed from their respective racks and I commenced re-bolting the SU Racks back onto the KLX250S. I'm getting to be pretty good at doing this now and I managed to complete the process in about 15 minutes. The trick to making it a little easier is to start with the middle bolt on each side, followed by the shorter, front bolt and finally the hefty rear bolt. None should be tightened much until you are satisfied that the bolts are threading in properly. Stripped threads in the frame = much badness.

With everything in place and tightened up, I then bolted on the rear bumper using the 4 temporary (actually undersized) bolts, washers and nuts I'd used initially. I did end up asking Bob at Happy Trails about the missing hardware and he kindly arranged to send it to me! I'm not sure how it got missed in the first place, but it's the customer service that matters in this case. Thanks Bob!

A few minutes later I had the bags in place and the mounting hardware tightened. I'm really pleased with the results and managed a short, brisk ride this morning to get the feel of riding a (much) widened KLX250S. I actually couldn't seem to tell the difference, but I bet I would in a stiff cross-wind.

Anjoy the photos below of the finished work! I'm now starting to think about electronics.

KLX250S License Tag Relocation

As you might recall, I found that the horizontal "bumper" that bolts between the left and right side SU Side Racks from Happy Trails partially obscured the license tag in its factory location on the '06 KLX250S. Not wanting another reason to be pulled over, I decided the best fix would be to move the tag down a few inches.

I scrounged a piece of aluminum from the junk box, made some measurements and had a friend at work cut it to dimension on the shop's sheet metal brake. I drilled two holes for the existing mounting bracket and another two near the top to secure the new bracket to the fender. I then cleaned and painted the plate using flat black from a rattle can.

Here's a shot of the finished "product" with the OEM bracket bolted on.

Yesterday, I bolted it to the KLX250S, using the existing holes in the plastic fender. Black 6mm cap screws and stainless steel elastic stop nuts and washers were used on the inside of the fender to keep things secure. The photo below shows the new position of the tag bracket with the Happy Trails "bumper" above it.

KLX250S - Simple LED Tail Light Assembly Swap

Quick and easy! That's the way I like things sometimes. For better visibility, I decided to replace the existing tail light bulb on the KLX250S with an LED-based option. Already being a customer of Happy-Trails, I noticed they offered the LED Tail Light WOW Kit (P/N AER70-001-2) for all years of the KLR650. Buried away in the fine print was a reference to this same assembly reportedly working on the KLX250S. Their pictures made it look like a reasonable gamble, since the mounting "tabs" looked like they would fit with the two screw mounting of the existing red plastic tail light cover on the KLX. I ordered one up and it arrived along with the "puck" kit I was going to need for mounting the Pelican cases to the side racks.

Here's what it looks like...

According to the documentation on the Happy Trails website, the stock incandescent bulb draws 5 Watts of power as a tail light and 21 Watts when the brakes are applied. This 6 LED assembly reportedly draws only 1 Watt as a tail light and just 10 Watts when the brakes are applied. Oooh, that leaves some Watts for additional farkle!

This also being the second generation of this assembly, it was supposed to also be brighter than the original, boasting the same 10 Candela when on as a tail light and 100 Candela (up from 80 Candela) as the brake light.

On to assembly... I quickly removed the two screws that secured the red plastic tail light cover from the KLX and extracted the existing bulb. The new assembly uses a bulb base with wires attached as shown above to make the electrical contact necessary to operate. I inserted the bulb base into the bayonet-style socket and gave it a bit of a twist to lock it into place.

I then gave it a quick electrical test to make sure it worked. Key on: Check. Tail light "lights": Check. Brake light "lights" when brakes applied: Check. Excellent.

I noticed that the smarts of this unit also flash the brake light several times upon initial application of the brakes - cool! No, I didn't count the flashes, but you get a few seconds of flashing before the brake light stays on steady.

I placed the screws back in their proper spots on the red plastic cover, aligned them through the mounting tabs in the circuit board and within seconds had everything back in place on the bike. VERY simple.

Here's a picture of the tail light function in action.

And here's one showing the brake light on steady.

I've not heard any reports of failures of this assembly, so I'm hoping I too have good luck with it. Please note that I can only confirm it mechanically fits on the '06 and '07 KLX250S since they have identical tail lights. The '08+ models have a different tail light in terms of shape and location. If you know that this product works there too or want to compare measurements, please contact me.

I've already let Bob at Happy Trails know of the confirmed compatibility with my bike. It would be nice if something could be stated specifically for the newer years.

KLX250S Adventure Make-over - Phase 3

After "losing" the Kawasaki-supplied rear rack during the bolting up of the Happy Trails SU Side Racks, Phase 3 activities were focused on adding a new rear rack back on the bike. My ultimate goal was to have a spot to fasten on a small Pelican case which will become a (near) permanent top box.

After looking around on the interweb for suitable rear rack replacements (Note: Very few options exist for the '06-'07 models), I settled on an interesting rack accessory from Twisted Throttle. Their SW-MOTECH Rear Rack for QUICK-LOCK tankbags (p/n GTH.08.428.100.TWT) was selected to fit the bike and as you will read here, it worked out pretty well.

As shown above, there's an aluminum plate that serves as the small, but useful (to me!) rear rack and a QUICK-LOCK Tankring Adapter that bolts on to allow any QUICK-LOCK-equipped tank bag from Bags Connection to snap into place on the rear rack.

This got me thinking that all I needed was the ring from one of those tank bags and I could bolt that up to a Pelican case and my "top box" would be easily removable whenever I didn't want it on the bike.

Since Twisted Throttle also sells the Bags Connection products, I figured they would easily be able to supply me with the part number for the matching ring I'd need to bolt to the Pelican case. After several emails and a gallant attempt on their part to help, I decided to give it up. Apparently, the only way I was going to get that ring was to buy a new or used tank bag and snag the ring off of it. I decided to leave that for later, since the rear rack itself showed promise to eventually allow me to bolt up the case.

Assembly was dirt simple. As you can see below, fit-up on the '06 KLX250S didn't require any modifications. The supplied hard plastic spacers fell right into place and all the bolt holes lined right up as expected.

Here's a shot of the rear rack with the QUICK-LOCK ring temporarily installed - just to give you an idea what it would look like. The hole in the front center of the ring is for a spring-loaded pin that locks the ring on the tank bag to the lower ring. Note: Although the tankring adapter looks like it's made out of aluminum, it's not. It's made of plastic, but does look like it's pretty strong.

You might recall that in Phase 2, I also lost the mounting location for my LED turn signals when the rear rack was removed. I needed to solve that problem here in Phase 3, but where would I mount them? A keen eye might have noticed the unused grommet-filled hole in the rear fender. This was the original location where the turn signal wires exited from inside the fender. The stubby little turn signal fit right into that hole, using the grommet for a shock mount. I could tell that the wide-flanged plastic "nut" that came with each turn signal was not going to clear the rear frame cross brace that's directly behind the mounting hole.

A quick visit to the hardware store yielded some possibly useful bits to make sure I could securely mount the turn signals in this location.

As it turned out, I used the new grommets, as the old ones were showing their age. The large rubber washers went unused, but the new nylon nuts were used to secure the turn signals in place. One side fit very nicely, allowing the flat side of the nut to snug right up against the frame cross brace. With this one, final snugging was done by carefully rotating the turn signal a bit - I got lucky! The other side was not so lined up and required a bit more fiddling under the fender to get things right.

With the LED turn signals in place, it was time to tighten the bolts for the rear rack! No sweat.

Oh, and one more thing... those LED turn signals needed to be plugged in under the seat. Oh boy. Time to remove the two bolts that held the seat in place. Now remember, these bolts pass through the Happy Trails side racks, the white plastic side panels and their associated hardware BEFORE they secure the seat to the frame. The seat came off easily, allowing me to plug in the turn signals, test them and zip-tie the appropriate wiring in place.

When it came to getting the seat back in place, it took loosening and in some cases out-right removal of side rack bolts to get it to cooperate and go back in the right spot. Another hour might have passed before I got lucky.

With all that work done, I could finally sit back and say sweeeet!!

Phase 4 will either focus on license tag relocation or the attachment of Pelican cases to the SU Side Racks.