We start while well underway, with fairing panels removed and the relay wiring harness being routed from the battery to the new fuse panel area. Mike (shown here) did the lion's share of the wiring work, much thanks to him.
Mike is momentarily looking A) puzzled, or B) irritated. These jobs are cause for lots of both!
We decided to drill a hole in the little parcel tray to help route the wiring, as seen here.
Here you see the basic power wiring about ready to hook up to the new Centech AP-1 fuse panel, also shown toward the right. These include the hot wire from the Centech AP-170R relay (not visible here) the negative wire going to the battery, the relay's ground wire that hooks to ground in the AP-1, and the relay trigger wire (orange) that will be spliced to the tail parking lamp wire.
Notice that the taillight has been removed to better access its wiring (the wired bulb is still hanging at the back.)
Wire routing; if you look at the detailed original photo, you can see to the left of Mike's left hand wires running to the relay, which is velcroed about mid-bike inside the frame. The red wire running to the front goes to the battery hot lead.
While Mike was working the wiring, I installed the ZTechnik accessory mount, where the Pioneer XM Inno will be installed. It starts by removing the bolts that clamp the clutch assembly to the bars.
Old bolts (in my hand) are out.
The mount kit uses new bolts with supplied spacers, one of which can be seen here.
The mount kit waiting to be bolted in.
Back at the rear, Mike has the Centech AP-1 fuse panel (with cover removed) mounted to the plastic parcel tray. All related battery and relay wires are hooked up, so we now have a usable fuse panel that is switched from the ignition key. In case you didn't know, the BMW has no fuse panel of its own, rather it uses a system called the CANBUS, which electronically senses load anomalies; the CANBUS also makes it tricky to install accessories, because unexpected loads cause power shutdowns.
The battery by the gas tank has the fuse panel and relay wires hooked up.
The ZTechnik accessory mount is ready for action. Also visible here, bottom left, is the heat controller (with red and black wire coming out) for the Sargent seat.
The controller itself is temporarily moved aside, but the wiring is ready to install. The Sargent heated seat comes with its own relay and fuse, but with the new fuse panel we didn't need to use theirs, and simply wired it directly to one of the new circuits with the same fuse rating.
All of this red and black wiring visible is new. As we'd later find out, it's also almost all not hidden by the missing body panels. More on that later.
At this stage, the Centech has the heated seat wired in to the 10 amp circuit.
You can see the AP-170R trigger wire running back to the taillamp wiring, where it senses whether or not the key is turned on.
Another look at the wiring to the battery up front.
Now the XM power wire is also installed, to the 5 amp circuit; we had to extend the power wire that came with the Inno Car Kit to reach the back here.
The metal cover finishes off the fuse panel.
The long length of wire you see on the ground is the enormously long lead for the XM antenna. In reality, about 18 inches would be plenty for this job.
This is a close-up of the switched power relay tucked inside the frame, attached with velcro.
The XM antenna wire is neatly wrapped and secured.
We had to loosen the bolts for the mount to thread the power and antenna leads through, for neater routing.
Mike starts reattaching the body panels.
With everything back together, it's time for some beauty shots! :-)
We just got that little metal bistro set visible on the pond patio. A market umbrella coming soon there.
You'll notice that all that wiring on the bike's left side is not so easy to spot now. That's because I used 3 separate pieces of plastic cable wrap to mostly conceal it.
This is our beautiful girl, Lucy. She's an Akita, and will be 10 in October.
In this closeup, the XM is visible at left. The BMW Nav system was an easy install we did several months ago (the bike is pre-wired for it.)
In this shot you can see the seat heat controller, mounted at lower left. It's hard to tell from the pictures, but it's fairly visible from the riding position.
In the large version of this photo (you can download it), the cable wrap I mentioned before is visible through the nooks and crannies. I also used a smaller diameter piece to streamline the wiring coming out of the seat heat controller.
Lucy likes hanging on the patio.
The girl of a thousand faces.
Back in the garage, the XM and nav screens are more visible.
In this shot you can see the XM antenna tucked up behind the instrument cluster, under the Puig windscreen.
XM antenna seen through the windscreen.
Happy garage: Corvette, BMW K1200S, Yamaha FJR1300, Yamaha R6, Yamaha R1. Mike's latest addition to the FJR, the really nice hard trunk bag, is visible here. That will really come in handy on our trip, to add to our 4 combined hard saddlebags.
