Now on to installation. I won't go through all the trials and tribulations, but I will just lay out the essential facts up front: this is an Italian-designed rack, manufactured in Malaysia, for a relatively low-cost Japanese bike built in Thailand. On my bike there were some flex-and-fitment issues, and it took three separate Sunday afternoons and a couple of trips to hardware stores to get everything all together. In retrospect I think the best thing to do would be to start by loosening the whole undertail and trying to put the whole rack on loose as a whole, to work out any fitment issues, and then lock everything down. I would also advise that if you have any electrical mods to do on the turn signals or tail lights, get those done first, since you'll be installing a fairly permanent structure into the tail compartment which might hinder any later activity in that area. I also can't say for sure whether this rack would be compatible with any of the tail tidy/fender eliminator kits out there, since it fits up into the stock undertail/fender system.
The tools I used should mostly be in your toolkit for working on a Metric bike already:
- Nylon-headed jewelry hammer (helped with getting the cap pieces onto the rack's arms).
- Chapman modular screwdriver system, metric hex bits of appropriate size, and mini-ratchet - I have this all in one little kit box.
- Garden-variety ratcheting wrench with a driver extension and Metric hex sockets (helps with getting under the tail, holding down the nylock nuts, etc.).
- M6 nylock nuts, and M6 and M8 washers, purchased separately for shimming, and to replace what didn't come with the kit.
- Blue Loctite is optional, and I didn't really need my $20 Harbor Freight torque wrench, because it required a fair bit of effort to get all this together anyway.
Here is your basic work space in the tail compartment. The little oblong bar will go across the frame ahead of the locking bar for the cowling/seat.
There are four screws (two shown here, on the right) which will be replaced by two types of long M6 screws that secure the handle-like lower rack support through the undertail, up into the tail compartment, and through the oblong piece. I will warn you up front that you should not do anything to endanger, lose, or damage the longest two coated stainless steel 90mm screws, as they are apparently a proprietary shape for this installaton; you can't get direct replacements at any average hardware store. Believe me, I looked.
This is your undertail workspace, and here is how the handle-shaped piece will be placed. The bottoms of the left-hand pair of undertail securing screws can be seen.
Now, this is where I ran into a LOT of trouble; the instructions seem to indicate that you should run the main, largest (90mm) M6 screws through the assemblies from the top down. This is WRONG, because you have to juggle a lot of fit issues at once. Aligning the 90mm screws through the top bar, the collars, then the frame, and the undertail, lower collars, handle piece, etc. while accomodating the routing of wiring all in one go is really not feasible.
I took a cue from a small photo I found on a Philippine forum and put them in from the bottom. The big screws go up through the "handle", then through stainless steel collars (this enables them to stand off from the turn signal wires)...
...then they come up through the undertail, and into the big, thick, heavy, plastic-coated collars, which should be pre-set in such a way that they don't cramp the wires inside the tail compartment. One of the big hangups was the alignment of the undertail and fender pieces vs. the frame; I needed to apply pressure to the fender assembly to get things to line up right. This is why I say it would be best to completely unsecure the undertail/fender before test-fitting. The rubbing on the right collar piece is from where I spent a whole afternoon trying to get things done the previous incorrect way. Worse yet, the core of one of these black collars was bored out too small towards one end, and again, there is no direct replacement or equivalent for such a heavy-duty coated collar piece available from conventional sources (believe me again... I looked!). I eventually got the 90mm screw to bite through that collar with help from my friend Seňor Manuel Labor, but if had access to shop equipment I would have tried to use real machine-work to fix it.
Eventually I got the screws driven up through all the pieces, and the oblong plate, and then I capped them off with M6 nylock nuts and washers (purchased at Lowes because they should have been in the parts bag but weren't). This is the final arrangement of the installed handle piece. The strange wiring routing is due to the No-Cut Tail Light Modulator which, by the way, is a fantastic mod, especially in conjunction with a 2357LL tail-light bulb.
Here is the installed "handle" as seen from below.
After this, the arms were fairly easy, or at least the right side was. On the right it was very simple: take out one of the exhaust hanger screws, hold the standoff collar in place, line up the arm, and screw in the M8 screw with washers, then the other M8 screw into the arm/handle. Super easy, and I was feeling great, until I went to install the left one... There, I found that the arm's rear screw alignment with the handle piece was off by quite a bit. Argh! Rather than tear everything out and re-install, and against my better judgement, I made it work by wiggling things around and forcing it in stages. After I got all the screws reasonably well started in the two holes (which took a bit of pushing and pulling at both ends of the assembly) I had a hell of a time torquing down the left front screw, and it went in, but it didn't go in clean. It's done and fixed in place, but I'm a little apprehensive about ever taking it out again.
Here are the arms in place with the platform-supporting cap assemblies installed. The lower caps are "cuffs" over the arm tops; inside the arm tops are holes which hold thick collar nuts. The collar nuts receive the M8 JCCB screws that secure the platform. The "cuffs" fit over the collar nuts (inside the arms) are designed to be a force fit, so make sure you have the collar nuts installed with their screw openings vertical, to receive the JCCB screws; if you put them in wrong, and then secure the cuff down over it, you'll probably never get it off again. Once the cuff is pressed down over the collar nut, you can use the JCCB screws like levers, rotating the collar nuts fore and back, to set the pitch of the platform caps. It's difficult to write but if you ever see the real thing, the arrangement is obvious.
Since I had removed my left passenger peg mount, I shimmed the resulting collar-to-arm gap with M8 washers from the hardware store. I measured that it would take five extra washers, based on the thickness of the passenger peg mount, and that turned out to be exactly right. If you have an aftermarket exhaust with a thinner, lighter-weight hanger on the right, you will also have to shim with a couple of washers on that side, but this is no big deal as everything secures well once it's lined up.
Platform, base pieces, and cuffs, secured with the M8 screws and big nylock nuts, seen from underneath.
Close-up of the cuff/base assembly. The upper base pieces have teeth which sit loose on top of the lower "cuffs", and they have (barely visible) index marks on the outside to help you set the pitch angle of the platform.
Here is the assembly order for installing the platform, seen from overhead: Inboard, a hex cap M8 screw through the platform, then washer, then through the inboard hole in the base piece, to be secured underneath by the bigger M8 nylock nuts. Outboard side is the JCCB screw which sits UNDER the platform (across from the washer) and goes through the base piece and the cuff piece, into the collar nut which is hidden inside the top of the arm and force-fit secured by the cuff.
Now another fitment issue peculiar to American bikes; the arms interfere with the standard positioning of the DOT reflector bar which is attached to the back of the license plate. Most people, I think, would take the opportunity to shed the reflectors, but I like to keep all stock components on my bike. In the end, all I had to do was flip the assembly inverted to be fitted on the lower license plate screws instead of the upper ones. Unfortunately the lower plate screws on my bike were horrible, corroded, torn-up philips-head pot-metal screws, so I replaced them with some new 16mm long socket-cap M6's, secured by wingnuts, just like the top screws.
Basic installation complete, with a Givi V46 mounted. I chose the V46 because judging by Google Image Search results, it seemed to be a popular choice on this rack overseas, and it wasn't too big, not too small, and the styling seemed pretty good. The rack and box don't spoil the lines of the bike quite as badly as you might expect, although IMO it does take a little bit away from the sporty, bigger-bike vibe that Kawasaki tried to breed into the '08 redesign. Maybe it tilts the overall aesthetic feel from "Ninjette" to "Super Scooter"?
