A BLOG, A RANT, OR SELF LOVE?

[CORSCO]

The day started with a bang but ended on a good note.

A few weeks ago, my shop sold a customer a new Yamaha XV1700 Warrior. The customer then decided to drop another $4k into purchasing Yamaha's SpeedStar Kit for it plus other odds and ends. The SpeedStar Kit includes high compression pistons, cams, stiffer valve springs, injectors, velocity stacks, ECM and stiffer clutch spring. He also purchased Shogun exhaust system and Kuryakyn LED signal lights.

Well everything is here but the cams, they are back-ordered. The customer wanted me to install what we had and I had to explain to him that this was a kit and had to be done as a whole. Well, he wanted the exhaust put on plus the turn signals. Fine. I just had to tell the sales department that they would be paying me twice for installing the exhaust system since the customer had already paid in full. Installing it, then taking it off again to do the head work, then installing it again. Fine.

The first thing I decide to do is the turn signals. No big deal, right. Well, you do not know our parts department. How hard is it to look in a catalog and order the correct part? Well, extremely difficult for our parts guys. Ordering wrong parts is the norm for them.

So, I go to install the front signal lights. Three packages from Kuryakyn. The marker lights, fork tube clamps to mount them to, and some sort of adapters. Looking at all the parts and trying them a few different ways, I cannot make heads or tails on how they want them to mount up. The only instructions given are for an '96 FLH Harley.

I go to the parts manager to see exactly what the heck he ordered. As I said earlier, the service and parts department don't really get along that well since they are constantly screwing with our paychecks by ordering wrong parts (Customers, I feel your pain, really).

Let's just say the short of it is that I offered the manager to take a step outside with me. Well, he felt threatened by this and had to go run to the general manager. The GM promptly pulled the both of us into his office for a "meeting."

That was 15 minutes I will never get back.

I go back to work and struggle again with trying to figure out how to make these turn signals mount up using this odd assortment of hardware all over my bench.
Screw it, I decide it is time for some serious customization. I am not going back to the parts manager and telling him that they will not work, by god, these lights are going to work!
I must say that have only worked in dealerships and customizing and "making" things work is really not my area of expertise. I usually order the correct parts to complete a given job, that is why the customer pays the labour rate of $70/hour, right?

Lets just say inspiration struck and I pulled out a freakin' work of art! Yeah, yeah, they are only turn signals, but man, they look clean. I wish I had some pictures to show off.
Let's just say that my drill came out in order to hide all the wires and much of the Kuryakyn mounts spend some time on the grinding wheel. I just flat out gave back the fork mounts to parts, didn't need 'em.

I would love to share with you all what I did, but some tricks need to be kept to oneself. I'm sure someone out there has mounted them like this before, I have just never seen it.

Sorry for patting myself on the back, it's just after doing this for as many years as I have, it is rare to really get excited about a job.
It took two hours to install those bad boys. Hope sales likes that! But hey, you got to pay for custom work, right?
I got pulled off that job to do some service work so was unable to finish up. Not sure what I am going to do for the rear signals to compliment the front.

Oh well, sorry for the rambling. I wasn't sure what thread to put this in. Soap Box or Blog or whatever. Guess I was just typing to see my words.

[snwbrdr]

i saw your words. way to go, whenever i start a customization project it either ends in my trash can or my father's garage, but such is life.

[froldt]

I too saw your words... now if only I could see some pics as well.
I can't wait to get my own bike, cause it's going to end up customized. For the old reason of customizing... they don't make a bike that looks exactly how I want it, and I can't afford buying parts. So I'm going to have to make/rig what I want. Man, I can't wait!

[drevil]

I understand your frustration with having to deal with the incompetency of others - especially when you work with them. Kudos for taking the initiative to do some custom work to get the job done - thankfully it worked out so far. I have a greater sense of accomplishment when I can work on my bike without the help of others, especially when other folks make compliments on the work done. I've got a relatively long list of things that have been modified or added to my bike and I'm proud to say that I've done 90% of the work myself. One incident at the local Yami shop involved some fuel-line re-routing which was needed to mount an engine cover that I had purchased. I had three guys in the shop doing a collective head-scratch until they simply gave up. I drove my bike home and did the work myself that evening. I did get some helpful advice from another forum regarding the procedures but the fact is that I did it myself. Getting excited is all part of why we have this two-wheeled obsession. Good luck and have fun with the rest of the mods to this customer's purchase. Keep in mind though, us Warrior owners can be real hard to please...

[DieMonkeys]

Back in january I bought a set of fog/driving lights for my truck and had to customize them to make them work. I had to go to *shudder* Home Depot to get some barstock and some screws. I cut into the bumper where the stock foglights would have been installed and tried to make the lamps as close to flush mounted as possible. I took half a day but hey, they look cool!







Oh yeah, and the reason why I shudder when I have to go to Lowe's or Home Depot is because I work at a True Value, where you actually get some "procreating" help! I was in Home Depot for a good 30 minutes before I could find anyone to help me find where they hid the gol-danged barstock.

[NorthernPete]

working with idiots is hard.... but a fact of life...unless your self employed...and even then on occation...

[TechTMW]

I would Love to see what you did!!

I just got finished with my bike customization project - Mounting Ammo Crates to my old BMW, and Wiring the Ignition switch into the Helmet lock

And yeah, like Pete mentioned, I'm self employed right now and sometimes I can't believe how incredibly dumb I am sometimes

[Scoutmedic]

You're going to have to try out some of those skills I've been tutoring you on Corsco! *Img* *Url*

[CORSCO]

You're going to have to try out some of those skills I've been tutoring you on Corsco! *Img* *Url*

Yea, thanks for that. I've got the hyperlink down. I should take my digital camera into work and snap a few shots of it. Maybe when the whole project is done.
I'm probably hyping the whole thing up! I just mounted the signals to the lower triple tree on the lower pinch bolt. I had to figure out how to mount the signals and still be able to torque the bolt. Thats where some of the head scratching came from, figuring out what to use and what to modify from the parts I had. Design wise, it came out perfect and pretty.
What I like about the job is since the wires ran in the middle of the signal, I drilled a hole just big enough for the two wires through the existing bolt hole in the lower tree and ran the wires straight on through it.
Like I said, it turned out very clean. I should talk the customer into letting me run the wires through the bars he picked out. That takes alot of time though. Lengthing all those control wires!

[Scoutmedic]

Sounds awesome. I hope the customer appreciates it!