man@venture
New Member
So I was feeling inspired and thought I would avoid spending $$$ on a fender eliminator by making my very own. Mostly free because I did pay for the parts I used but a long time ago and never used them for the intended purpose anyway....
I will start by saying, If you like this idea and want to use it, BE ADVISED it obviously means cutting up the oem fender, and in my case using some bar end signals I had around. I would think it is possible to make something like this using regular turn lights, I probably will try to come up with something in case I find the bar end signals not bright enough. If I do I will post it here.
Anyway so here is what I did.
First of I spent maybe a whole day messing around with sheet metal making my own fender eliminator. It sorta worked but I was not overly happy with it. It may have been the wine, hammer and anvil combination why it didn't turn out to good. So on to new things one being that I liked the holes and clips the oem one has for running the wires and I could not figure out a way to easily do this with the sheet mental. Out with the handsaw.... Away with the handsaw and out with the knife. Yup its that soft.
I recommend before you take the OEM fender off have a look and see where you want to cut it off and how much you want showing. I wanted it really hidden so I cut it almost flush with the bike. I hope the pictures will explain this more.
That done I cleaned it up with some sandpaper and painted it black. The way I cut it once bolted on the bike you cannot see it from the side unless your eye level is below the seat.
I then took a steel tube roughly the same dimensions as the 7/8 bar handlebar as I was planning on using the bar end signals. I got this from an old camping chair I had around. After cutting it off and test fitting the bar end signals fit in perfect.
At this point you have to decide how long you want the bar to be/stick out from under the bike, and how far back under you want to mount the bar to the bike. Being that I wanted to use the clips and holes from the oem fender I just cut up, I aligned it up to the hole where the wire passes through and cut the tube.
Ok here its a little tricky, Please if you want to do this make sure you MEASURE MEASURE AND MEASURE again before you cut or drill anything.
FOR ME - because I used the bar end signals, I had to make sure the steel tube was long enough for the signals to fit in the bar and that I drilled the license plate hole far enough away from the end of the compression part of the bar end signals to allow the wires to run through the steel tube with out getting pinched.
IF you use other type of signals you probably would have to adjust the length of the steel tube/pipe to suit your needs.
I then MEASURED and drilled 2 holes, exactly the distance eye to eye of the license plate bolt holes, through the tube. Take some time on this and make sure the plate will end up in the middle of the tube.
A buddy of mine gave me 2 led license plate bolt lights so I ran the wires for those through the tube also.
The trick here is - when drilling the license plate holes in the tube go all the way through the tube. then flip it over and make those holes slightly larger. The idea here is to be able to fit in a flat head screw driver or small needle nose pliers to hold the nut in place from the inside of the tube when screwing in the LED plate lights.
I also used, instead of a washer, a custom fitting that hangs down a bit and allows me to put the plate on and take it off whenever I want with out having to take everything apart.
I then aligned the tube up and marked where the hole in the oem fender where the wires ran through originally and the tube met up, and drilled a large hole here. This hole is where all the wires for the signals and plate lights run through so make it large enough to fit them all. We will call this the WIRE hole.
I then drilled two holes on both sides of the "wire hole" to mount the two together parts together. I think the pictures will show this clearly.
I ran all the wires loctites the crap out of everything and assembled.
PS. I also used electrical tape and wrapped all the wires for extra protection in case there was any sharp edges left over from where I drilled the holes to run the wires through. I was really happy I did that as I would have definitely ripped a wire or two while running all the wires through the steel tube.
The end product, a very minimalistic rear fender with all the goodies still there and NO real visible wires to speak off, everything is nicely hidden and neat from all angles. Sweet.
here are the pics. sorry they are all after everything is together, but it should provide with a good idea of what I did. If you have any questions just ask.
Thanks for reading.
Edit: For the part where the holes line up and the wires run through, I am going to run a rubber tube around all the wires and fit it into the Steel tube, I then will use some sealer and make sure no water can cup off the wheel and seep into the steel tube where all the wires run through. Once I get it done I will post a pic here to better explain what I plan to do. Anyway the idea is, water proof the crap out of the Steel tube OR perforate the crap out of the tube so it holds no water at all, I dont want the wire to be swimming in there the next time I get caught in the rain. I am choosing to seal it up because I vinyl wrapped it to match the bike.
I will start by saying, If you like this idea and want to use it, BE ADVISED it obviously means cutting up the oem fender, and in my case using some bar end signals I had around. I would think it is possible to make something like this using regular turn lights, I probably will try to come up with something in case I find the bar end signals not bright enough. If I do I will post it here.
Anyway so here is what I did.
First of I spent maybe a whole day messing around with sheet metal making my own fender eliminator. It sorta worked but I was not overly happy with it. It may have been the wine, hammer and anvil combination why it didn't turn out to good. So on to new things one being that I liked the holes and clips the oem one has for running the wires and I could not figure out a way to easily do this with the sheet mental. Out with the handsaw.... Away with the handsaw and out with the knife. Yup its that soft.
I recommend before you take the OEM fender off have a look and see where you want to cut it off and how much you want showing. I wanted it really hidden so I cut it almost flush with the bike. I hope the pictures will explain this more.
That done I cleaned it up with some sandpaper and painted it black. The way I cut it once bolted on the bike you cannot see it from the side unless your eye level is below the seat.
I then took a steel tube roughly the same dimensions as the 7/8 bar handlebar as I was planning on using the bar end signals. I got this from an old camping chair I had around. After cutting it off and test fitting the bar end signals fit in perfect.
At this point you have to decide how long you want the bar to be/stick out from under the bike, and how far back under you want to mount the bar to the bike. Being that I wanted to use the clips and holes from the oem fender I just cut up, I aligned it up to the hole where the wire passes through and cut the tube.
Ok here its a little tricky, Please if you want to do this make sure you MEASURE MEASURE AND MEASURE again before you cut or drill anything.
FOR ME - because I used the bar end signals, I had to make sure the steel tube was long enough for the signals to fit in the bar and that I drilled the license plate hole far enough away from the end of the compression part of the bar end signals to allow the wires to run through the steel tube with out getting pinched.
IF you use other type of signals you probably would have to adjust the length of the steel tube/pipe to suit your needs.
I then MEASURED and drilled 2 holes, exactly the distance eye to eye of the license plate bolt holes, through the tube. Take some time on this and make sure the plate will end up in the middle of the tube.
A buddy of mine gave me 2 led license plate bolt lights so I ran the wires for those through the tube also.
The trick here is - when drilling the license plate holes in the tube go all the way through the tube. then flip it over and make those holes slightly larger. The idea here is to be able to fit in a flat head screw driver or small needle nose pliers to hold the nut in place from the inside of the tube when screwing in the LED plate lights.
I also used, instead of a washer, a custom fitting that hangs down a bit and allows me to put the plate on and take it off whenever I want with out having to take everything apart.
I then aligned the tube up and marked where the hole in the oem fender where the wires ran through originally and the tube met up, and drilled a large hole here. This hole is where all the wires for the signals and plate lights run through so make it large enough to fit them all. We will call this the WIRE hole.
I then drilled two holes on both sides of the "wire hole" to mount the two together parts together. I think the pictures will show this clearly.
I ran all the wires loctites the crap out of everything and assembled.
PS. I also used electrical tape and wrapped all the wires for extra protection in case there was any sharp edges left over from where I drilled the holes to run the wires through. I was really happy I did that as I would have definitely ripped a wire or two while running all the wires through the steel tube.
The end product, a very minimalistic rear fender with all the goodies still there and NO real visible wires to speak off, everything is nicely hidden and neat from all angles. Sweet.
here are the pics. sorry they are all after everything is together, but it should provide with a good idea of what I did. If you have any questions just ask.
Thanks for reading.
Edit: For the part where the holes line up and the wires run through, I am going to run a rubber tube around all the wires and fit it into the Steel tube, I then will use some sealer and make sure no water can cup off the wheel and seep into the steel tube where all the wires run through. Once I get it done I will post a pic here to better explain what I plan to do. Anyway the idea is, water proof the crap out of the Steel tube OR perforate the crap out of the tube so it holds no water at all, I dont want the wire to be swimming in there the next time I get caught in the rain. I am choosing to seal it up because I vinyl wrapped it to match the bike.
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