My little old 400 has suffered from a general lack of electrical oomph for awhile now, so when it came time to service the little orange beastie, I decided to go for a bit of a makeover/upgrade too!
It appears that KTM enduros in general have just enough of an electrical system to start them, then if you have lights etc, the drain on the battery will slowly kill off a battery in a much shorter time than on a road bike. the stator/generator is just about enough to put back energy but a severe drain and your knackered. Couple this with pretty crap quality wiring loom and earth connections and hey presto, you need to upgrade things if you do anything outside of the 'normal' racing sphere that KTM's are built for.
As I'm new to looking into electrics on bikes, I have done a fair bit of research and talked to much more knowledgeable people than me to get a rounded general way forward for my plans with this bike.
I've added a couple of bits to the bike already, a 12v/5v waterproof charger and a 12v Garmin Montana 600 GPS unit, trouble is now I want to add heated grips and upgrade the system to improve both starting and generating power.
So my research has taken me to the TrailTech systems. I bought from them their 100w stator, a replacement Regulator/Rectifier (£165.00) and an X2 light (£115.00) fitting. When they all came, I stripped out the various parts and refitted the new ones... Added to this was the gasket (£12) for the casing from KTM and in my case a new casing (£66.00) as mine had sheared a bolt on the inside which was just swimming around... nice!
The paperwork from Trailtech is all for much newer bikes, so are the YouTube films, they are also working on a clean unchanged bike, whereas mine is 16 years old, it's had a few bits messed around with it and the colours on the cables aren't always the same, so re-wiring the lot required some help from a couple of mates!
YouTube TrailTech Fitting Films:
100 watt stator
X2 headlight Unit
I emailed the UK importer for some help but after a week of waiting for a response I gave up, I maybe should have called them as I have heard lots of good things about their service but in this case I got no response!
The X2 was eventually fitted in place after a request was put onto the KTM Facebook forum and a really helpful guy wrote down all the connections for me, so I just had to sort them out. I had to move up the existing wiring block about 3cm to make room for the bigger light shape at the back, so I made an 2mm aluminium plate that bolted into the existing holes, then mounted the electrics there with some front standard indicators.
I've added some things to a dashboard which I'm slowly building, it is basically some 3mm aluminium plate that a friend had in their garage. At the moment it's still taking shape and I also want to add a small protective screen to the front of it as now that I've raised the wiring block and added a dashboard, the rain will collect in the gap between the two. It should also have the added bonus of offering a bit more wind protection when I'm doing some of the road links.
One final thing I haven't decided upon as yet is whether to fit a key as the isolator for the electrics. It does offer the added bonus of making the bike a little less thievable by the scumbags of this world, but it's main function is actually to save the battery from being drained. Of course I will have to get someone with a greater degree of understanding of these things to walk me through the process, but hey, it's always good to learn something new!
So the little project continues, panniers are the next thing, then a shakedown trip in maybe Portugal, Spain, Morocco or all of them!
Happy days
It appears that KTM enduros in general have just enough of an electrical system to start them, then if you have lights etc, the drain on the battery will slowly kill off a battery in a much shorter time than on a road bike. the stator/generator is just about enough to put back energy but a severe drain and your knackered. Couple this with pretty crap quality wiring loom and earth connections and hey presto, you need to upgrade things if you do anything outside of the 'normal' racing sphere that KTM's are built for.
As I'm new to looking into electrics on bikes, I have done a fair bit of research and talked to much more knowledgeable people than me to get a rounded general way forward for my plans with this bike.
I've added a couple of bits to the bike already, a 12v/5v waterproof charger and a 12v Garmin Montana 600 GPS unit, trouble is now I want to add heated grips and upgrade the system to improve both starting and generating power.
So my research has taken me to the TrailTech systems. I bought from them their 100w stator, a replacement Regulator/Rectifier (£165.00) and an X2 light (£115.00) fitting. When they all came, I stripped out the various parts and refitted the new ones... Added to this was the gasket (£12) for the casing from KTM and in my case a new casing (£66.00) as mine had sheared a bolt on the inside which was just swimming around... nice!
YouTube TrailTech Fitting Films:
100 watt stator
X2 headlight Unit
I emailed the UK importer for some help but after a week of waiting for a response I gave up, I maybe should have called them as I have heard lots of good things about their service but in this case I got no response!
The X2 was eventually fitted in place after a request was put onto the KTM Facebook forum and a really helpful guy wrote down all the connections for me, so I just had to sort them out. I had to move up the existing wiring block about 3cm to make room for the bigger light shape at the back, so I made an 2mm aluminium plate that bolted into the existing holes, then mounted the electrics there with some front standard indicators.
X2 wiring:
Bike Brown > Light Black
Bike Blue > Light Yellow
Bike Green > Light Red
Bike White > Light Red - (NB Only do this if you want both lights on at full beam)
I've just ordered the heated grips I want, so once I get them I'll be fitting them to the bike, along with a fuse board and a system to isolate the whole of the electrical additions when the engine is off.
The heated grips are the Symantec Heat Demon ones with the round rocker switch and waterproof cover, I got them from Winding Roads in the end at £47.50 plus postage, although Zen overland do the ones with the toggle switch for 0.50p cheaper!
One final thing I haven't decided upon as yet is whether to fit a key as the isolator for the electrics. It does offer the added bonus of making the bike a little less thievable by the scumbags of this world, but it's main function is actually to save the battery from being drained. Of course I will have to get someone with a greater degree of understanding of these things to walk me through the process, but hey, it's always good to learn something new!
So the little project continues, panniers are the next thing, then a shakedown trip in maybe Portugal, Spain, Morocco or all of them!
Happy days
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.