1st off, I apologize for not showing the steps in pics. Honestly I did this the same evening I got the bike home and totally forgot. Hopefully I can describe in detail good enough with pics of final result to be useful.
Take your time and read all the way through before attempting. This took me about 4.5hrs to do.
I am very impatient and needed to get rid of all that extra plastic on my back fender so I gambled a little bit with my plastic/metal working abilities. I could not find any pre-made kits that could be purchased so I basically eliminated it with what was already installed on the bike. I removed the plastic from the metal fender by removing the two nuts at the top of the inside rear fender and the two bolts one each side also inside fender. The entire plastic piece will now dangle from the wires which have quick disconnects. You will need to clip some thin plastic straps that secure the connectors/harness to the plastic. Once I got everything disconnected I was able to work it on my table. You will discover that there is a metal bracket that reinforces the plastic fender extension. I removed all bolts etc. to separate the two pieces. Here is where it gets tricky. I trimmed the plastic just underneath the taillight just above the tag light. There is a seam there that if you follow it then it will look like it was made that way. See my pics. I personally used a hack saw because I am too shaky with a dremmel on plastic. I used light sanding and a lighter to very slightly melt/smooth the plastic edges to give it a molded look again. Next you have to modify the metal plate and license plate. The metal plate has a half circle bevel that if trimmed out will give you a flat surface allowing you to mount the tag directly to it long as you are willing to drill some extra holes in the license plate, but don’t drill them yet. If you look at the pic that shows the underside of my tag then you will see the half moon cut out where the bevel used to be. I remounted the metal plate to what was left of the plastic piece. I used a license plate cover/frame I already had and mounted it to the plate with all four bolts (tag and cover together by themselves). This is to fill in the empty tag holes since I was going to make two more holes. You want to do this first to get proper spacing/centering against the metal plate and the bottom edge of the tail light before drilling the tag. You can choose to just mount the tag with no frame to save money but I attempted this and was not happy with how it looked. Drill holes in tag through the holes that are already in the metal plate. I used two LED bolt lights (most bike shops have them for $10) to mount the tag onto the mount I just made since I cut off the original tag light. WARNING, nuts between tag mount bolt and frame bolt on the back side will be close very each other. I did not have to use a wrench on the backside when tightening down. Once everything is snug then run led tag wires back up to the harness and splice them into the original quick connect for the tag light. As you can see I shrink wrapped the wires to keep somewhat stock looking. Once all the harness is re-secured to the plastic piece and connectors are reconnected to the bike then test the lights. Probably best to test them before installing in the tag, but again I was in a hurry and spaced it. I did not test before full assembly and had a bad bulb making me have to pull it apart to replace bolt light.
Hope this helps anyone willing to take a chance with their stock parts. Rush it and I could be an expensive mistake though.
Mike
Take your time and read all the way through before attempting. This took me about 4.5hrs to do.
I am very impatient and needed to get rid of all that extra plastic on my back fender so I gambled a little bit with my plastic/metal working abilities. I could not find any pre-made kits that could be purchased so I basically eliminated it with what was already installed on the bike. I removed the plastic from the metal fender by removing the two nuts at the top of the inside rear fender and the two bolts one each side also inside fender. The entire plastic piece will now dangle from the wires which have quick disconnects. You will need to clip some thin plastic straps that secure the connectors/harness to the plastic. Once I got everything disconnected I was able to work it on my table. You will discover that there is a metal bracket that reinforces the plastic fender extension. I removed all bolts etc. to separate the two pieces. Here is where it gets tricky. I trimmed the plastic just underneath the taillight just above the tag light. There is a seam there that if you follow it then it will look like it was made that way. See my pics. I personally used a hack saw because I am too shaky with a dremmel on plastic. I used light sanding and a lighter to very slightly melt/smooth the plastic edges to give it a molded look again. Next you have to modify the metal plate and license plate. The metal plate has a half circle bevel that if trimmed out will give you a flat surface allowing you to mount the tag directly to it long as you are willing to drill some extra holes in the license plate, but don’t drill them yet. If you look at the pic that shows the underside of my tag then you will see the half moon cut out where the bevel used to be. I remounted the metal plate to what was left of the plastic piece. I used a license plate cover/frame I already had and mounted it to the plate with all four bolts (tag and cover together by themselves). This is to fill in the empty tag holes since I was going to make two more holes. You want to do this first to get proper spacing/centering against the metal plate and the bottom edge of the tail light before drilling the tag. You can choose to just mount the tag with no frame to save money but I attempted this and was not happy with how it looked. Drill holes in tag through the holes that are already in the metal plate. I used two LED bolt lights (most bike shops have them for $10) to mount the tag onto the mount I just made since I cut off the original tag light. WARNING, nuts between tag mount bolt and frame bolt on the back side will be close very each other. I did not have to use a wrench on the backside when tightening down. Once everything is snug then run led tag wires back up to the harness and splice them into the original quick connect for the tag light. As you can see I shrink wrapped the wires to keep somewhat stock looking. Once all the harness is re-secured to the plastic piece and connectors are reconnected to the bike then test the lights. Probably best to test them before installing in the tag, but again I was in a hurry and spaced it. I did not test before full assembly and had a bad bulb making me have to pull it apart to replace bolt light.
Hope this helps anyone willing to take a chance with their stock parts. Rush it and I could be an expensive mistake though.
Mike
