The CB1100 Community Forum

Let me begin by giving credit where credit is due. Forum member tomas posted an informative thread here:

http://cb1100forum.com/forum/showthread....ht=pannier

Rather than restate what he has already stated so well, let me add some of my own observations with these cases. In particular, a little more detail about what it took to relocate the rear turn signals. As I mentioned to another forum member in tomas' thread, now that I've experienced it and worked through it, it's not difficult. Getting there, however, was a challenge given my limited experience with this sort of thing.

Mr. T (Takashi) at Samurider is always a pleasure to deal with. I was unclear on whether I had to purchase a relocation bracket and asked if he sold one because I could not find one on his website. He told me that the panniers come with a relocation bracket. The problem was that I had ditched my stock license plate bracket which that relocation bracket was designed to fit. I was an early purchaser of the license plate bracket manufactured by forum member metalmaven. That required me to find another suitable relocation bracket. I lack the metal working skills of metalmaven and tomas. But I'm quite handy with plastic. Especially plastic that has a string a 16 numbers and an expiration date.

Exactly one week after having placed my order, the panniers arrived. Tokyo to San Diego in seven days is quite impressive.

The panniers were well packaged and free from any damage.

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As expected, the directions on how to install the panniers were in Japanese. The instructions did include schematics which helped somewhat. And someone was kind enough to type out a set of instructions in English and include those in the package. I found myself referring to the English directions, then the schematics and then tomas' thread, looking for more details on how to do this. Unfortunately, I was stuck at Step 1.

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1. Remove the stock rear blinkers and ...

I'll just cut to the chase here rather than describe in boring, agonizing details the several hours it took me to figure out this "simple" step. As a precaution, I disconnected my battery and wrapped the negative lead in electrical tape to prevent any arching. Necessary? I'm not sure. You're getting into that space anyway so why not:

1. Remove seat.
2. Remove tray (one screw with backing nut and one push pin).
3. Find electrical connections inside rubber boot and peel back boot.
4. Orange connector is your left turn signal - disconnect it by pulling up on the small tab then pulling it apart.
5. Blue connector is your right turn signal - disconnect in the same fashion.
6. The wires to your turn signals run from these connections back over the rear fender then out to their respective sides where the stock turn signals are affixed to the grab rails - simply pull them out and towards the back of the bike.
7. The wires are held tightly against the top of the rear finder by a curved piece of metal. Using a flat head screwdriver, bend that piece up slightly and pull the turn signal wires free.
8. Use an allen wrench to remove the grab rail bolts and the bolt that holds the turn signals onto the grab rails. Once those bolts are removed, you can simply slide the turn signals with their attached wiring completely out from the grab rails. That was a good feeling.

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After removing my license plate, I tried to figure out a way to make the relocation bracket that came with the panniers work.

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Try as I might, I couldn't get it to work with the metalmaven bracket. If any of you have the stock license plate bracket and want to relocate your turn signals, I'd be happy to send you the bracket that came with these panniers. Just send me a private message. I ended up purchasing a universal license plate relocation kit from Saddlemen. I think it was just over $20. It worked perfectly.

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I ended up not needing any of the bolts or connectors that came with the Saddlemen kit; just the bracket. I'm running up against the photo posting limit so I'm going to post this then continue with another post ... stay tuned.
9. The stock turn signals have two black rubber pieces pressed together from which the wires extend. Remove the bottom piece of rubber and the small brackets and bolts that were part of the unit. It should just slide right off.
10. Affix the turn signals to the bracket. The holes in the Saddlemen bracket allow the turn signal to lie flush and the wire to pass through. I ended up using fender washers and 6mm-1.0 x 20mm bolts to affix the turn signals to the bracket.

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Once I had determined that the included relocation bracket wasn't going to work, I put my license plate back on and affixed the Saddlemen bracket with the turn signals onto the bottom bolts of the license plate. The next part is the wiring. We haven't even gotten to the panniers yet! But this preliminary stuff is what takes the most time.

11. Connect your turn signal wires. If you're okay with the turn signal wires running up along either side of the rear fender, then you simply do that and use the included extenders to allow the wiring to snake back over the top of the rear fender and down into the electrical harness by the battery; the one with the rubber boot you disconnected early on. I tried this but didn't like the look of it. I went back to tomas' thread and looked closely at what he had done and decided if it was good enough for tomas, it was good enough for me! I took a large drill bit and carefully enlarged the hole that already exists at the bottom of the tail light housing (after having removed the red cover and holding the brake light wiring out of the way with my other hand). I then drilled a hole in the side of the tail light bracket large enough for me to add a rubber grommet and pass both turn signal wires through. I then passed both wires to the left, under the frame and on top of the rear fender. I used the extenders which, thankfully, simply snap onto the existing connectors and routed the wires back down to the connector by the battery.

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This is without the rubber grommet.

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With the rubber grommet.

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As another precaution, I used more electrical tape to further protect the exposed wiring.

12. Reconnect your battery, cross your fingers, and test your turn signals. Everything worked perfectly.

13. If you've made it this far, you can finally put the panniers on! The panniers come attached to their brackets. Each has two Phillips head bolts and washers at the bottom. Remove the panniers from the brackets and attach the brackets to the bike using the supplied spacers, nuts and bolts. The brackets attach where the grab rails used to be (no more grab rails). The shorter spacers go up front and the longer spacers towards the rear. Only one set of the bolts require a nut and I can't remember which one. I'm confident it was the rear set.

14. Once you have the brackets securely attached, place the panniers down into the bracket, align the holes, tighten and refasten using the supplied bolts and washers. Easy peasy Japanesey.

The Japanese set of instructions came in one of the panniers along with two keys taped to the inside. I don't have great shots of the bike yet with the bags but hope these will suffice. Excuse the messiness of my garage. I think the orderliness of garages fall upon a spectrum with mine being on one end and, say, redbirds' on the other. Most fall somewhere in between.

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Very nicely done

Awesome post, thanks for all the details. This will help greatly whenever I decide to drop the cash on these.

I noticed you mounted your turn signals on the bottom of the license plate. Do you think they'd work mounted to the top as well or is that not possible due to the way the plate attaches to the fender?

Looking forward to some more pictures of the final setup.

Those look great.....

Hey, those look like my bags! Job well done there, mentallyguitarded. Great write up too, lot better than mine. I'm sure you'll enjoy yours as much as I have enjoyed mine.

Looks Great!

They look great, metallyguitarded! I'll look forward to hearing how you feel the bike handles when they have a bit of kit in them.

(08-19-2016, 02:41 AM)Rocky_imp Wrote: [ -> ]Very nicely done

Thanks Rocky!

(08-19-2016, 03:04 AM)olekzap_imp Wrote: [ -> ]Awesome post, thanks for all the details. This will help greatly whenever I decide to drop the cash on these.

I noticed you mounted your turn signals on the bottom of the license plate. Do you think they'd work mounted to the top as well or is that not possible due to the way the plate attaches to the fender?

Looking forward to some more pictures of the final setup.

Ah...deciding to drop the cash is actually the hardest step of all. The Saddlemen bracket would not work at the top of the license plate. I can't remember exactly why but I remember it wouldn't work.

(08-19-2016, 03:09 AM)clearviewx_imp Wrote: [ -> ]Those look great.....

Thank you!

(08-19-2016, 03:36 AM)tomas_imp Wrote: [ -> ]Hey, those look like my bags! Job well done there, mentallyguitarded. Great write up too, lot better than mine. I'm sure you'll enjoy yours as much as I have enjoyed mine.

"If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants." - Isaac Newton

Thanks for your original thread. It was incredibly helpful.

(08-19-2016, 07:31 AM)Lord Popgun_imp Wrote: [ -> ]Looks Great!

Thank you, sir!

Excellent post MG. Your pics made the process clear.

(08-19-2016, 07:36 AM)Cormanus_imp Wrote: [ -> ]They look great, metallyguitarded! I'll look forward to hearing how you feel the bike handles when they have a bit of kit in them.

I'm looking forward to that as well! I have a number of lightweight camping supplies saved in my Amazon.com wishlist that I hope to accumulate and put to use. I'll likely add a Kriega 30L dry bag to rest atop the pillion seat to fit more gear. My thought - to travel east along Route 66 from San Diego to Chicago, finding camp spots along the way. There, I'll visit with my brother and meet my niece for the first time. I have visions of PCH trips as well. Big Sur is calling my name.

(08-19-2016, 08:14 AM)redbirds_imp Wrote: [ -> ]Excellent post MG. Your pics made the process clear.

Thanks redbirds! Hopefully this helps anyone looking to relocate their rear turn signals, regardless of what type of bags they use.