[JT_BMW]

Thanks Max for your Youtube video's it's all I really needed to strip and reassemble the bike.

After you strip the bike and reassemble you realize it's not that bad, it's was interesting to see how Honda assembled and designed the new covers, you just have to take your time with the clips and snaps. The front top nose cover is a little tricky to get the clips in along the top of the instrument panel, you just take your time and don't force stuff until you get the clips and tabs in. I had a strange issue with the left side battery access panel cover not fitting right until I saw when I took the tank out that the fuse box got pushed in front of the main harness and the panel was hitting on it, the fuse box goes under the main harness. That front "L" tab on the engine covers over the heads and coil packs easily get's caught and you can break it off quite easily (ask me how I know...) I had to epoxy the left cover "L" tab back on, that was the only casualty on the disassembly/reassembly. One other note on loosening the right saddle bag, there are collar washers that can fall out of the rubber grommets in the bottom of the rubber mounts, keep an eye out for them, if you loosen the trunk, you also have to be careful of these falling out there also. I have the service manual, but only needed it to look up torque values on the shock bolts and front Axel bolt.

I added the USB charger cable in the trunk instead of side panel, thanks WingWing for your posting on this, it's a much better place for the cable. I added the Beachcomber Highway boards, I really like these and prefer their mounting directly to the crash bars. I passed on adding the puddle lights and trunk light, and since I was not interested in the extra brake light assembly I did not add the trunk accessory harness.

I will say Honda should have just included the XM antenna and the switches for the Fog light and Homelite accessories, and why did Honda pick such a crazy location for the Homelite transmitter, It makes sense now why some just add it under the seat, though it was really not that bad getting the harness through right saddle bag, it's something you only do once, so what the heck.

-Jim

 

[JT_BMW]

Really the tear down of the bike is not that hard, With resources like Fred’s videos it’s even easier, I myself just tackled it with some basic knowledge of how things are manufactured and I learnered as I went, it’s time consuming yes, but I did not consider it as being difficult. I enjoyed learning about the bike, I took my time and was not in a hurry. It took me about 4 days after work to strip the bike and get every thing off, and the tank out, and 5 days after work to get all the accessories in and shocks in and get it back together. The XM radio and Homelit drive a LOT of extra work, I felt the shocks themselves were straight forward. I probably have 30 hrs into the project. I can tear it down really quick now though, it would take me well less than half the time now and some things you don’t have to do again like taking apart the right saddle bag for the homelit transmitter and getting to where the XM radio antenna is. -Jim.