Free Street Design undertail install

As promised I'm posting shots and instructions for the FSD undertail.

I'd like to point out a few things before I begin.
1) It's $219usd unpainted + $50 for shipping to the states. Add $50 for matching paint. Shipping took 4 weeks. (feh!)
2) If you want clear lenses make sure you let FSD know before they ship. They want $89 for clear lenses by themselves.
3) Remember to ask for their installation PDF. Mine did not ship with one.
4) Be prepared to modify your bike past the point of no return. You'll be cutting and grinding big chunks of your bike off.
5) This is NOT a simple bolt on and cannot easily be undone.

Tools:
4.5" grinder w/ grinding and cut off disks
Dremel
Sawzall
Sockets / screw drivers / allen wrenches (duh)
Soldering gun / wire stripper
Masking tape / pen


Paint the new undertail to protect it from damage:
1) Remove the light assemblies from your new undertail
2) I used two coats of Rustoleum High Performance satin black on the outside and one coat on the inside. Satin black is the best color when you don’t want parts to be seen, or if you want them to look smaller.
3) Make sure the paint has 'cured' before applying your second coat or else the first coat will never cure and remain tacky.
4) After the second coat has fully cured reassemble the lights

Here are the lights once removed from the undertail. Sorry it's in drunko vision. My camera doesn't have anti-jitter.


A close up of the LEDs.


The undressed undertail


Underside



Undress your bike:
1) Remove the seat
2) Remove the rear cowl. When unplugging the wiring harness from the light assembly mark each plug with masking tape. I wrote the light position on the tape then wrapped it around the plug.



3) Remove the license plate/mudguard assembly, then pipes.
You don't need to completely remove your pipes, you can just undo the top two bolts and let the pipes rest on the rear tire.
4) Cover the rear tire, pipe, and chain. A welding blanket is best, but cardboard or a sheet will do. Keep in mind there will be melted plastic and metal shavings getting everywhere.
5) Remove the stock light assembly from the rear cowl.
6) See pictures on which plastic tabs you need to grind off your rear cowl. Best tool: Dremel





Cutting your bike:
1) The area under your seat that holds your tool kit, power commander, and registration will need to be cut. See pictures. FSD also has pictures of this upon request. This area is basically a plastic bucket. You'll need to but the rear half of this off. If you cut too much off you'll have to make a shim, like I did. Best Tool: 4.5" grinder w/ thin cut off wheel. Be careful of hot dripping plastic.





2) There are two bars that your stock passenger hand rails attach to. See above. They are welded laterally across the rear of the frame. The rear most bar needs to be modified on both sides so your blinkers fit. Do you see how they taper at the end? In that round bar, under the taper, is a welded in square bolt. You need to grind the taper up and towards the frame so the bolt is the lowest part of that bar. The front end of the bar does not need to be ground, just the rear of the bar, or from the bolt back. You need to grind enough bar so that when you attach the new undertail the blinkers are not pushed down and out of their housing.

See the white bulb in the middle? It goes into a round threaded metal housing. You can see how even after I ground down that bar on top of it, it's still pushed down.


Bulb misery on the other side. This one falls out when I'm riding. I know it's fallen loose when the turn signal indicator blinks twice as fast as it normally does.

(EDITED 09/23/06) - Before starting this procedure you may want to cut down the threaded tubes that the blinkers sit in. After cuting about 1/8" to 1/4" off the threaded tube on each side they now fit perfectly. You may want to try that BEFORE grinding down the passenger handles down, but on my bike it looks like I needed to do both tube cutting and frame grinding.





Mounting your new undertail:
1) Test fit it a few times so you know you’ve ground off enough metal and plastic.
2) There are bolt holes on the undertail. These holes bolt to the bottom of the passenger hand rail mounts. Use the forward ones, the ones you did not grind. There are no bolts supplied, but you have some left over from removing your mud guard assembly that you can use.
3) Verify that the undertail is pointed up enough. Mine sagged. You know you have sag when you dry fit your rear cowling and you have to bend your rear cowling down in order to get the stock bolts back in. If you have sag you will need to make shims like I did. See pictures.
4) You may need to grind the metal bracket on the undertail that is supposed to slide into a plastic bracket on the undertail. I had to grind mine down a bit with the Dremel.

Metal tab may need to be ground.


Mounting the undertail




My method for wiring:
1) You’ll need to cut the stock plugs off the wiring harness and the ends off the new lights.
2) Strip about ¾” off every wire as you go.
3) Start with your blinkers. It doesn’t matter which wire goes to which for the blinkers, as long as you have blinkers matching. Twist wires together, test blinkers.
4) If both blinkers test OK then solder and tape w/ electrical tape. If the bulbs burn out you will not need to unsolder these wires. If the wires touch while the bike is you will blow a fuse, so make sure the wires are not touching while you are testing.
5) For the running and stop lights you’ll need to match the colors. These colors matched on mine:
FSD Wires Honda Wires
Yellow Blue/Yellow
Red Green w/ Yellow stripe
Black Solid Green

6) You’ll need to match two new LED lights to one set of wires from the wiring harness. Your light assembly only had two red lights and your new one has four. I matched the two inside lights to the plug that went to the upper stock light and the outside ones to the plug that went to the lower light. You can match the left two to the upper and the right two to the lower if you don’t mind being lopsided if there’s a wiring failure on one side.
7) I used wire nuts to connect this three way connection because I don’t like soldering three wires together. I’m lazy like that.
8) Once everything is wired, tested, and taped put your pipes back up, then the rear cowling.

Finished product





My shim:
I had to make a shim because my new undertail was sagging, pulling the rear cowling down and making it bow. I believe it’s partially a design error and partially because I ground too much off my under bucket.
1) You’ll need an L shaped bracket or two. I used a piece of metal used for hanging garage door openers. I cut the piece down with the sawzall, then ground the sharp edges down.
2) Placed one side of the shim in my vice, heated it with a torch, then hammered it down to about 70 degrees from the original 90 degrees.
3) Drilled holes in the underbucket. Dry fit the shim and found I needed to make new holes in it and did so.
4) Painted the shim satin black.
5) Bolted the shim to the underbucket, dry fit the undertail and rear cowl. The rear cowl no longer bows when I bolt it down so the shim pushes the undertail skyward enough.
6) With the undertail pointed higher the blinkers are now pushed down by the passenger hand rail mounts again. I took everything back off and ground more of that metal off. I made a note to myself to paint that someday so it doesn’t rust.

The shim I made


I guess it was worth it, but it was more work than I thought it would be. Also, the fit and finish isn't as good as I expected, which was kind of a let down. But all in all it looks much better, and the rear end does feel slightly lighter.

I'm sure some of you noticed my heat shields turned black half way through the install

 

pretty damn cool canib, kudos to you for trying the difficult! I'll likely see it when I meet up with you someday here in Vegas. Now, what are we going to do about this unsightly exhaust you got here...lol. Oh, am I the only one that things the stock exhaust mimicks the guns off of some post-apocalyptic machine that roams the earth killing survivors? Or have I been watching too much TV...

 

Thanks guys! I do totally need a new set of cans... drilling them and blacking out the heat sheilds did help a bunch though. I'm still trying to decide if the 'Rise of the Machines' pipes are OK. Also still planning on visiting Best Muffler and/or saving for Laser or Staintunes. All in good time.

Last time someone stopped me to drool over the bike they thought it was a Ducati. Honestly I'd rather they thought it was a Honda.

 

canib I just wanted to say that looks sooooo cool. I think I would be scared to do the cutting to my bike.