First things first - got to get an inventory of all the parts. The HT SU racks come in three pieces - two sides and a "bumper" that connects both behind the bike. It also came with a bag of hardware and a wire extension, and a "puck" set, which connects the panniers to the racks.
I must say, the instructions were mostly quite good but the photos could be a little better. First, I had to take off the inner fender and the rear rack (which was a bit of a bummer as that meant taking off the Givi rack too). Note where the inner fender is now:
And there's the luggage rack:
Things were going well, if a little slowly. The electrical connections for the signal lights were quite difficult to get apart, as they were thoroughly caked in two years of dirt. Patient jiggling and some cursing under my breath seemed to do the trick, though.
As I mentioned earlier, the instructions were pretty decent. I had noticed earlier that the bumper part seemed to be a little, well... "off". When I first put it on, the bend in the centre was about two inches to the right of where it should have been. I took it off, flipped it over, and it fit like a charm. Of course, right at that moment it made perfect sense - the racks themselves aren't symmetrical, since the one on the right side of the bike sticks out farther to make room for the exhaust!
With that figured out, it was time to get out the Loctite and start torquing the bolts in properly. After that, I had to re-run the wiring for the signal lights. The kit came with a neat little screw-on extension that seems to work well, but I may end up letting paranoia get the best of me and replace the extension with wire, solder, and heat shrink tubing. We'll see.
Everything fit back together well and after I re-routed the wiring twice (it was too close to the exhaust on the right side), the racks were on. I tested all of the lights... everything worked, and I let out a little sigh of relief.
Here's what the racks look like without the panniers:
Last thing to do was get the panniers in the racks. I opened the puck kit and immediately ran into a problem. The threads didn't go all the way through the little claw parts/pucks that bolt onto the panniers. They started at the far side but tapered off well before where the bolt was supposed to go.
Time to get out the ol' tap and die set:
The pucks are made of aluminum, so it was very easy to fix the threads. After about half an hour, they were all fixed and installed on the panniers.
Then it was time to install the panniers on the racks. I noticed right away that I'm going to have to extend two of the holes for the bolts in the panniers downwards a bit as the pucks don't rotate the full amount to lock in perfectly. Regardless, the panniers went on and (mostly) locked into place. By this time, it was approaching 8PM and I'd been at this for four hours. I'll drill out the holes tomorrow.
Here's the (almost) finished install:
I'm quite pleased with how they look. Mrs. HAL picked up some gaudy yellow and orange reflective tape from Princess Auto today (thank you!). It will be put on the panniers along with some other reflective stickers I've got kicking around. It should help the KLR stand out a little more!
If I had to pick something that I wasn't too impressed with, it's the way the rear signal lights are extended. With just one bolt holding the extensions on, I wonder how long it'll be before they start to sag. Obviously, it's something that will get checked frequently, but I still wonder why it was done that way. I may be able to fit a second smaller bolt in there to help keep it level... might be worth looking into.
Other than that, I did my weekly check today. The chain is going to need tightening shortly, and I had to pump up the tires a bit, but other than that, everything looks great.
Safe riding!
Odometer reading now: 9457.5km
Distance since last fill: 114.5km
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