V11 Sport/LeMans Rear Fender Eliminator Kit

[al_roethlisberger]

I just finished installing my rear fender eliminator kit from Kelly Baker a couple weeks ago. I was going to post the review right before the board was hacked, so after some delay....

 

First, before I forget... to contact Kelly:

 

Kelly Baker's Performance Unlimited

3219 75th Street West

Rosamond, CA 93560

661-256-7246

mgv11sport@yahoo.com

 

 

The kit I installed is a two-piece affair that replaces the small plastic inner fender, and the large outside mudflap and license bracket on the rear of all V11 Sport/LeMans. Although my kit is made from aluminum, I believe that all subsequent models from Kelly will be made from some sort of composite such as carbon fiber. As I am not a big carbon fan, I was really excited to get the durability of aluminum, and actually, it's feather light. Kelly may be coerced into making another aluminum unit, but apparently bending the pieces is quite a pain.

 

Although I don't know what his carbon fiber units will cost, the aluminum verision I installed was about USD$200, and the quality construction and good fit were worth every penny. Further, Kelly took a lot of time and personal attention to make sure everything was right, even offering to make me a complete new unit when I had some fitment problems at the beginning.

 

You may also note that my unit as installed is powder-coated satin black to match the bike's color-scheme. I had Kelly do that special-order for a few more $$'s, otherwise it would have come in bare metal. I assume future composite units will be black/carbon. But you'll have to contact Kelly to make certain.

 

Because the installation is so simple and straightforward, I'm not going to detail it here. One merely removes the stock fender, inner-fender, tail-light, and indicators. Then you install the tail-piece that holds the lights and license, tidy-up all the wiring, and then install the rear cover.

 

Everything uses stock mounting points, and unless like me you want to add one final fastener up top just because there happened to be a hole available... you shouldn't have to modify or drill anything on the bike. It is a very well designed unit. It's really quite a simple unit to install.

 

The only real modification I made was to add a good deal of black weather-stripping around the tail-light, and as I mentioned above, I ran a screw vertically through the unit into the tail of the bike just for a little more solidity in the mounting. But honestly, this isn't necessary.

 

I have enclosed photos at:

 

http://briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/al_roethlisb...nder+Eliminator

 

If you like what you see, feel free to contact Kelly. I really like the product and think it cleans up the rear-end of the bike dramatically.

 

But according to him, I have the one and only aluminum non-prototype... and it will be the last... so nyah nyah *wink*

 

al

[Guest Jaap]

Can you still fit the Tekno bags frame? An what happens with the licence plate light?

BTW: looks great, I think I will contact him...

[Guest Janusz]

I just sawed off a large piece of plastic mudflap and after remounting the plate as high as possible it looks almost the same.

 

I should really learn how to post the pictures...

[Guest Jaap]

Posting images is easy. Make sure you have the images somewhere on a webserver. Maybe you get webspace with your provider-contract?

Upload the images there.

When you post/reply, click the grey IMG -button. A dialogue window will pop up. There you type the complete path ofthe image you want to show. like http://www.yoursite.com/images/guzzi.jpg

Click OK and a piece of code will show up in your message. Then preview the post if everything is OK!

If so you can post it.

 

Good luck and if you need help let me know!

[al_roethlisberger]

....license plate light is gone, gone, gone

 

But, actually this isn't such a bad thing for two reasons. First, one really doesn't need the plate light, as the tail-light generally casts enough red light through the bottom of the lens to illuminate the plate. OR, since the tail-light is exactly the same as those on older Ducati Monsters, those have a clear window under the lens just for license plate illumination, so in theory one could just change that out it is's important.

 

Second, you now have a spare set of stock power hookups under your seat What with disconnecting the license-plate light(BTW, that thing is darned HOT when on!).. you end up with a pair of bullets in the harness under the seat that are now available for any accessory. I wish I had known that before building the much more custom harness for my heated-grips, otherwise I would have just used these connectors later. But no big deal, at least the grips are now on their own fused circuit versus running off of the "lights" circuit *sigh*....

 

So bottom line, yep, you lose the license-plate light... but it's not a big deal at all. Mine is still bolted to the whole old tail assembly... wrapped in bubble-wrap and stored with my old seat

 

 

In regard to the soft-bags frame... that's a good question... and an important one. However, as I mentioned in the soft-bag thread, it looks from your photos that the stock bolts required are still retained(it's the bottom set on the new tail). Since everything bolts right up to the same stock subframe, strength and placement shouldn't be an issue. However, I am sure that Kelly will be able to give you some thoughts, and he's very good about guaranteeing his work. I would be very interested to hear "for sure" how it all fits together. It looks OK from the photos, but there's only one way to know for sure... and that unfortunately is to try it.

 

Oh, and as an alternative to just cutting off the stock fender.... well with all due respect, there really isn't any comparison... other than that both methods do in fact reduce the length of the fender....

 

I too had manually trimmed my fender on my old FJ1200, with much success. But that was on a 10 year old bike with 60k miles... so I didn't mind taking a saw to the stock part. I didn't feel that comfortable doing the same to my brand new LeMans. And, after looking at the Guzzi fender, it appeared that my results would be less than satisfactory due to the construction of the assembly(so big, so many curves), the license plate light, and width of the fender. I just wasn't convinced that it would result in an outcome I would be satisfied with.... of course that's not to say that someone else may be perfectly happy with a well-done trim job

 

But there are two substantial things that trimming the fender cannot do in comparison to the unit here, and first that is raising and pulling the indicator lights up and in closer to the tail. They have go to be 6 inches closer together and about an inch higher. Quite a bit different than stock... Perhaps a comparison photo between a stock unit and Kelly's may help illustrate... which I don't have handy... but just compare and you'll see the dramatic difference. It's very striking, and really looks much better in person than the stock solution... well in my opinion anyway! *laugh*

 

Second, Kelly's kit angles both the tail light and the indicator lights up by 20 degrees or so. So when you are behind the bike, standing, in a car, on another bike... the tail light and indicator lights are focused up into your eyes and are now quite bright and twinkly like jewels ... seriously... especially now that I have running-lights with the Kisan signalMinder product!

 

And it just looks really nifty....

 

So, again... a really cool product. Kelly only makes a handful, so it is fairly exclusive, but it really cleans up the rear of the bike and sets it apart from other V11s.

 

Drop him an email if you are interested. I'll be very interested to hear a review and see photos of the newer composite units.... although I am very very happy with my aluminum one!

 

Take care

 

al

[Guest Janusz]

Al;

 

I really hope you did not take my comment as a negative one but if you did I'd like to apologize right now. I just wanted to inform what I did as an alternative. By the way I find all your posts entertaining and highly informative being another enthusiast just like you.

 

Back to the topic : you made a good suggestion and I will certainly get rid of this ugly plate light in the wintertime on one of the rainy days.

 

As far as the FRONT indicator lights go, and only for non-LeMans v-11 owners I think, they can very successfully and with definite esthetic benefit be shortened just by getting rid of the middle segment of the stalk.

[al_roethlisberger]

Hi, no... no problem at all

 

Thanks for the apology, but after re-reading the posts, I can't really see where I could have been offended... although I can now see where ya'll might think I can't spell or assemble a grammatically correct sentence!!

 

Take care....

al