2020 Installing a Brake Light Flasher on a Honda Shadow

CLine was insanely envious of the Brake Light Flasher that I installed onto my Versys back in 2013. When I apply my brakes, a clever bit of electrickery strobes my brake light three times quickly, then goes on full solid, to alert motorists behind me that I'm about to do something (stupid? unique? entertaining?). The idea is it attracts their attention much better than simply oscillating between an always on run light and extra bright indicating the vehicle ahead is slowing down.

The GS-100A Strobe Controller for LED Stoplight

CLine and I were talking about the legalities of the devices, and I told her that if anyone comes up to her and objects she should say... (She interrupted me at this point)

"It got your attention, didn't it?"

I really couldn't argue with that, and it was ever so eloquent when compared to the diatribe I was about to launch into. It is supposed to enhance a riders safety, as the only thing we have back there to let folks know what is going on are three small indicators, one of which protects your life by alerting people behind you, but it is usually smaller in size than a softball. Anyhow, I've put over 200,000 kilometres on various bikes that mount them and have not once been questioned by law enforcement nor border/customs officials. 

ICBM abandoned wilhe-nilhe on the road

Right, I'd managed to scotch our plans for a ride last Saturday by sending an Inter Continental Ballistic Missile ICBM through my rear tire while out on a ride on Thursday night around Canoe Cove, and as my tire was flat, useless and the glue on the plug was still wet, we opted to head over to Caroline's place and get started on the installation of the GS-100A Strobe Controller for LED Stoplight that she has had for a couple of weeks now, as she finally had all the bits and pieces she wanted to make it happen. 

There are a ton of installation How-Tos on the interwebs, so I'm not going to steal their thunder, suffice to say that I'll try to give you some model specific details for a 2004 Honda Shadow.

CAUTION!!! Some viewers may find the following images of a well ridden, dirty, adventure wanna be Honda Shadow disturbing or offensive. Those offended may want to ensure they are comfortably seated, have their pacifier/soother along with a blindfold close to hand, and a Sharon, Lois & Bram recording ready to play. Or as Caroline puts it "sorry not sorry for the filthiness of my bike".

Why doesn't she keep it clean and safely parked in the garage with the polish rags!?

  

1. You will want to have the drivers seat off so you can access the three connectors protected by a rubber sleeve that rests on top of the battery cover top thingy. 

2. Locate the one with three conductors using a white plastic connector. The three wire colours are:

• brown
• green 
• green with yellow stripe. 

3. On the male portion of the connector whose wires head towards the rear of the motorcycle, Cut two of the wires leaving enough room at the connector to solder or splice in the future. I would leave minimum 3/4" at the connector side. You want to cut the green and the green-yellow stripe. Leave the brown run light untouched. 

NOTE: My friend Jeff  advocates purchasing identical harness connectors so the bike can be put back to stock easily for sale or for inspection if needed. "...I cut nothing.. always make or buy adapters to plug in and go back to the way it was." 

 

Update: 

I've since seen a diagram where the installer cut only one of the wires, and simply connected the other wire in parallel. I've added this below for your reference. It's always a good idea NOT to cut unnecessary wiring if you can manage it. 

This installer simply connected the grounds in parallel
The black wires are all connected (tapped) onto the green ground wire of the bike
GS-100A Wiring Diagram

4. For reference, the wiring diagram breaks it out as follows:

• Green = frame ground 
• Brown = run light (always on) 12V
• Green-Yellow = Brake light (only on when brakes applied) 12V

5. Orient your GS-100A correctly, and connect the "IN" side to the forward part of the motorcycle, and the "OUT" to the wires continuing on to the back of the motorcycle. My girlfriend opted to use bullet connectors to do this, the idea being that if the module failed, she could simply remove it and plug the harness back together. Ensure your finished cable and module are routed UNDER the frame rail and not OVER TOP of it. 

  6. I encourage you to "do a tug test" on each of your connections. You would rather see a poor connection fail in the driveway as opposed to one the highway one dark and stormy night.

 7. Prevent water ingress by using electrical tape over the end of the manufactured insulation. Wrap this as tightly as you can manage.

Note that we disconnected the strobe and rerouted the cable after our testing, then tested again once it was secured to the frame rails out of the way of contact with the seat.

And now, for your enjoyment, a video showing the completed job. Caroline replaced her analogue 1157 bulb with an LED one that she purchased on Amazon.ca, so her bulb appears quite bright in this video. Your mileage may vary. 

The GS-100A will apparently work with both analogue AND LED bulbs, but the pattern changes a touch as the  analogue bulbs can't respond to the quick flash voltage spikes the same way. 

This video by Gary Rowe highlights the differences you might expect to see:

Conclusion: 

Caroline has been riding with the brake flasher for almost a week now, although has only gone out on a few rides. Some observations of mine:

• Try to engage the brakes for a three second or longer period as opposed to "blipping" them on and off. Not only is it a good habit to get into, drivers won't shout out that "Your brake light is broken!" when you get to the stop lights. If you are in the habit of a brief touch now and then, all we will see behind you is your brake light madly flashing away unless you hold the switch activated a tad longer.  
• It really does work to improve visibility, as I have a tendency to ride a bit too close to Caroline when following her, and she used to catch me by surprise with braking once in a while, but it's got me backing off a bit more which is a good thing. In my own experience, I note that some drivers leave me more room behind the bike as well. Not always, but the difference has been noticeable. 

What have you done to make your ride safer this season? 

Update:

I installed one of these on my Versys over the weekend as I had the bike up on blocks for the stator which I fixed fairly quickly, a defective connector being the culprit, and as I'd a wee 3rd Brake Flasher that I'd bought used from an old KLR rider that sold me some spare parts, and it had finally given up after seven or eight years on the bike. Seeline had gifted me with one that she'd bought from Amazon, and it was past time to get it installed and feel a bit safer with all that traffic around me. I used to ride in downtown Toronto traffic on my motorcycle, and this is one the tools that I advocate wholeheartedly for use, the brake light strobe function is going to alert drivers that something is going to happen. Your job is now simply to hold down the brake lever long enough so it doesn't just flash at them, but flashes then goes steady, a simple thing to do with one fingers pressure. One the Versys installation was even easier as there is a big frame ground bolt where I was able to pigtail my grounds and attach both to the ground there, and as I'd already had the wire sorted for the Versys, I just used some spade connectors from Seeline's terminal kit and crimped on something quick and easy. Done like dinner. 

It's brilliant! 

The Versys Gen 1 mirrors...

I've a 2009 Kawasaki KLE650 Versys, known as a Gen 1 as it was the birth of the new model back in 2007, and they had a few bugs that needed to be ironed out, which included "loose mirrors". Which will become "useless" mirrors etc.

Note the missing left hand side mirror?

Some of the bugs really irked me. Such as loose mirrors. I suppose if you fell into that rider category of "Only rides from Church to Tim Horton's when the forest fire danger is 'high to extreme'." then you know nothing of my dilemma and wonder why I need to replace my mirrors on the bike. I fall into the "He probably shouldn't be doing that. He might fall down or damage the bike. Oh my! He did fall down and damage the bike!" category of rider.

After many gravel roads and potholes, wheelies etc, I found that my left hand mirror began to move more easily. I'd hit a really bad pothole, or come down too heavy on the front end, and it would swing around backwards at me. A casual glance at these mirrors leads you to think that they are really strong and robust...

That rubber covers a multitude of sins...

The mirror shaft is about 12mm in diameter, and uses a 10mm threaded bolt to mount to the handle bar brackets, yet the designers of this have cleverly camouflaged their mistakes under a couple of layers. 

First you will need to slide the rubber cover up to expose a curious sight, 

I bet you don't have a wrench this big in the set you bought on sale...

So why would you use a nut that ships with PRE-ROUNDED corners much larger than the average 17mm or 19mm wrench that ships with an average combination wrench set?! Right, so if you are like me, or my friend WIllie, out comes the trusty old adjustable wrench and you are able to find that in order to tighten the mirror, you need to separate these two. The Silver Cone (Part A) needs to be removed from the Black Base (Part B), then using a thin walled 10mm socket, you need to tighten a nylock nut on the end of the mirror that uses friction to hold the mirror in place. You do this by hand without the aid of a vice, and think you might want to use some of the blue medium strength thread locker on all the parts so you won't be back into this on Friday after work. Note that I would not be able to do this roadside with the stock kit as it lacks the tools necessary. 

2014 saw me tighten the mirror too much with the nylock nut, and I managed to snap off the end of the mirror, but by the grace of God there was enough thread left behind that I was able to reuse the nut with some washers, and get through the rest of the season.

Fast forward to 2015, and now the left hand mirror is wobbling when I'm on rough pavement, so I'm constantly correcting it before lane changes. I'm now much safer as any to the left has to be cleared with the mirror and a should check first, as the mirror is often no longer showing a view to the side and rear of the bike. A last ditch attempt to fill Part A (The Silver Cone of Concealment) with JB Weld epoxy, tighten the bugger and let that goop set for 24 hours, saw me once again snap the end of the mirror off, but this time it was done, and I rode the last couple of weeks of the season without a left hand mirror.

It's dead, Jim!

I happily forgot all about it until a few weeks ago when I took the bike out, after which this starving student ordered in the cheapest replacement pair I could find that would pass a vehicle inspection coming up in July when I renew the registration. China had the answer, and I got my package...

Julie Andrews and the Sound of Music - Brown paper packages tied up with string... These are a few of my favourite things...

Are you old enough to even remember that song? :D

 I was a bit nervous that the mirrors would mount properly as while I researched, I heard mention of left and right handed threads etc., but I'm happy to report on my Generation 1 Versys, the thread is 10mm on both sides, and the normal right handed thread we all know and love. Righty Tighty, Lefty Loosey.

They aren't made of cheese, but they are pretty cheesy. 

 These mirrors are made of cast white metal, and frankly I don't think they will last more than a couple of years, but for $37 Cdn shipped, I can live with that. I want something functional that will pass an MVI later this year.

I still can't believe how robust the upper is compared to the final 8mm connection.

Who came up with this and couldn't see a problem developing later on?

Not perfect, but they work.

Job done, time to blog, err, Ride!

And that is that, although I do have a couple of suggestions for the designers...

• If you have a 12mm shaft, try to stick to within a couple mm of the connecting bolt. Just saying.
• Nylock nuts on a mirror? Come on. If you can't even touch that the nut with the bike onboard tools, then it needs to be rethought. 
• Next time I'd rather you focus on vibration damping if you are going to invent something fancy and useless
• Run any designs past your old man first and get his go-ahead before sneaking them onto  the completed project. If you cannot find an old man, one will be provided for you. 

I'll come back and update this if they survive... :D

Update: 2016-04-22

 The mirrors are pointing at the ground and have horrible vertical adjustment. I'm going to have to rotate the mount on the bars in order to get a better view of the road behind. That may effect the attitude of the brake and clutch levers. Perhaps I'll simply loosen the handle bar and rotate that until fixed? 

Update 2022-04-19:

As bad as they are, these thirty seven dollar mirrors are still in one piece and working. One vibrates and buzzes once in a while like an angry bee until I reach over and jab it into silence with my thumb. More powder coat paint has flecked off, but they are working, and I've no plans to replace them until they fail. :)

Maintenance and farkle day for the Versys!

On Saturday I'm leaving for a twelve day riding vacation to Prince Edward Island, and as I expect to put at least 3,200 kilometres on the bike, I figured it was time for another oil change, as well as an opportune moment to install some Barkbusters Storms and a Kaoko throttle lock that I purchased used last fall.

I dropped the oil without too much mess right into the pan, and to my delight I located a cap style oil filter wrench that fit onto the Bosch oil filter. The wrench made removal and installation a breeze! In fact, it went on so tight that I had to back it off to hand tight and deliberately add a 1/4 with the ratchet.

Hokay. The barkbusters are all fiddly, and need to be installed with all the fasteners pretty loose until it all lines up. Removing the fasteners to hit them all with medium strength thread locker then finding they didn't quite want to go back into place was a pita! But eventually brawn and wile beat them out and they  are installed to my satisfaction, although the Strom handguards look a bit too tall for my riding style, and I wander if enough air will flow over my hot sweaty hands in the dog days of summer.

The Kaoko throttle lock is designed to be used with handguards, so there is no bar end with it, and while similar to the Manic Salamander bar ends I had on my KLR, it has the potential to lock up quite a bit tighter, so I'll be using it when on a straight boring stretch of super slab when I want to stunt or scratch my nose. Just kidding, I pull over to scratch my nose. :P

Right, now to test drive the nice clean oil and watch  it fade to black again.

Oops, I almost forgot to lube the chain while it's up on the stands!

Test ride!

Update: With the bar risers and Give windscreen set to the highest adjustment level, my new barkbusters hit the windscreen just before steering lock. It's manageable, I'll ride it out. :) 

There was wind coming over the barkbusters, and the air stream is felt most on my wrists. They should be great for spring fall and the odd rain storm.

And there you have it! Bark Buster Storms

Update: 2019-05-29

The bark busters do flow a lot of air onto my wrists, and that's changed the way I dress on cold spring or fall days, so that I always wear a long sleeved shirt while riding as it runs right up my jacket sleeves. *sigh*