LED Tail and cleanup

[Leveller]

Just finished installing a set of led taillights and also restyling the back end of my GS , ive removed the luggage bars and removed the old red tailight lens and replaced it with a fabricated clear polycarbonate lens , the remaining fender has been removed and a new licence plate holder / indicator mount made up, i think its improved the look of my 2001 model by removing all the parts that were spoiling the clean lines of the tail plastics.



theres a few more piccys here

http://www.gs500e.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?s=f46ce4a3ce2b4676090a2081c12b2e9d&threadid=389



Lev

[scratch]

Looks very nice! Very professional.

[mrslush50]

love the gold wheels!

that custom taillight is pretty cool.  looks fairley simple.  how difficult was it?

[dmp221]

VERY nice...where were you able to find that tail lens?

[Leveller]

the lens is just 2 thin sheets of polycarbonate ..2mm thick i think, i removed the tail plastic and used the hole where the original taillight lens as a template , after cutting the first piece out i then cut a second lens making it about 3mm wider around the edges ,then i just sandwiched the 2 pices together, then the new lens sat flush on the inside of the tailsection.

very easy to do , just remember measure twice cut once  



Lev

[mrslush50]

what about that duel exhaust?  cost to benefit?  how does it sound?  difficult to do?

[pantablo]

Lev,
Excellent looking tail work there.

How about some pictures without the tail bodywork so we (I) can understand better how you treated the taillight housing, etc?  Very impressive work. I'm jealous.

[Lex143ms]

I see that you bought LED tail lights that just go in where the bulbs do.  does performance motorcycle parts ship to the US and do they fit in the stock tail light housing?  also how much is E30 in US?  thanks yo

[Leveller]

Pablo ill try to get some photos posted soon, but to be honest it will seem obvious how to mount the led cluster and plate holder if you strip off that plastic and look at the shape of the metal work making up the rear subframe , its just a sheet of aluminium with 4 tabs screwed to the rear subframe , which brings me to the question from Lex, i didnt actually use the lights supplied by the website i mentioned, the LED clusters i used were from my local electronic shop Maplins , the clusters are manufactured by a US company called Kingbright  http://www.us.kingbright.com/Products/Cluster.asp it is the 52mm cluster, i presume they can be obtained a little more local to yourself , i found the clusters ideal as they have mounting points and are weatherproof they cost me 9 pounds so im guessing around 15 dollars a piece although you may well get them much cheaper , they have a max current rating of 260ma , so i used current restricting resistors , i think the values were 120R ( for the tail light ) and 47R (for the brake light) i tried a lower value on the brake light but it was too bright , it was like a fog light lol, blinding even, ill try to get some photos posted soon , im just enjoying riding my GS before i pull it apart again  

Thanks guys for the positive comments  



Lev

[Leveller]

PS. mrslush50 the pipe was a custom one off , it sounds awsome i dont think there is much performance gain and it was expensive by American standards but we dont get cheap exaust systems in the UK a cheap pipe over here would be around the 200 to 250 pound mark ..so whats that, 300 to 350 US dollars ? anyways i like the system and it was exactly what i asked for so im happy  



Lev

[Joris]

Whoah, dude, that looks very good! Can`t wait to see the end result. Send us the pictures!

[pantablo]

check this thread for more pictures. looks awesome.

http://www.gs500e.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?s=2862cdf0706ff390e2f89a8925f4ed75&threadid=389

[JohNLA]

The new tail light looks sweet .
In the side pics I love the missing luggage bars but from directly behind the whole in the plastic looks odd.