Still have lighting questions!

[KeithQ]

Has anyone used the Adventure Tech mounting hardware 'bar' on a Tracer? Emailed them and they suggested I ask here on the forum!

Yamaha Auxiliary Lighting - AdventureTech, LLC.

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We have light bars, lights, and wiring harnesses with surface mount...

Looks like it would hold the PIAAs. 

[Ride365]

Rick makes good stuff and stands by his products, I'm sure will be going with this kit sooner than later.

[draco_1967]

I bought one, and it fit with a little work. I ended up selling it to another member here. The lights I have are a little heavier than what the light bar was designed for, so they bounced a lot. I was concerned about that movement breaking the fairing stay. 

I went with the Givi aux light mounts, and am happy with it. It doesn't bounce, and it adds some rigidity to the fairing stay. 

[keithu]

When I first installed the Adventuretech bracket with my custom extension and PIAA LP550s I also noticed quite a bit of bounce. But there is some up-down adjustment on the mount point. I adjusted the bracket up as high as a could, so that the light mounting bolts were actually pressing against the plastic piece under the main headlights. This eliminated all of the bounce, amazingly. I've put about 7-8k miles on it now and there doesn't seem to be any negative effect on the fairing or bracket. 

Edit: I have a 2015 FJ-09. I can't speak to how well the Adventuretech bracket works on a newer Tracer. 

[draco_1967]

8 minutes ago, keithu said:

When I first installed the Adventuretech bracket with my custom extension and PIAA LP550s I also noticed quite a bit of bounce. But there is some up-down adjustment on the mount point. I adjusted the bracket up as high as a could, so that the light mounting bolts were actually pressing against the plastic piece under the main headlights. This eliminated all of the bounce, amazingly. I've put about 7-8k miles on it now and there doesn't seem to be any negative effect on the fairing or bracket. 

Edit: I have a 2015 FJ-09. I can't speak to how well the Adventuretech bracket works on a newer Tracer. 

Yeah, the fit is a little different on the 2019+. I had to open up the bend angle of the bracket for it to even clear the bottom of the plastics. 

[keithu]

58 minutes ago, draco_1967 said:

Yeah, the fit is a little different on the 2019+. I had to open up the bend angle of the bracket for it to even clear the bottom of the plastics. 

I thought the same thing when I first got the bracket, it didn't seem to be open enough for my 2015 FJ-09. I didn't open it all and had to squeeze a bit to get it installed initially, but I still had some shaking while riding. I gave the bracket a mighty shove to get it higher in the subframe mounting slots and that helped a lot.

I don't think the problem is the Adventuretech bracket, but the OEM subframe mounts are pretty flimsy.  

[KeithQ]

I am going to try the Denali mount brackets that pivot. Hopefully they will be able to hold up the DR1 set.

 

Will upload some pics once complete. Right now, still struggling to jam the wiring harness from Eastern Beaver (PC-8) fuse box under the seat!

 

[keithu]

I have a Fuzeblock FZ-1 which appears to be similar in size to the PC-8. I ended up putting it under the front seat latch bracket, as shown below. You can see that I trimmed plastic barrier a bit to accommodate the wiring. The velcro strip secures the Fuzeblock so it doesn't vibrate or bounce around.  

 

This is a little bit of a pain because it means the seat bracket must come off for fuse block access. But it's only four bolts and comes off quickly. This leaves room for my MCCruise controller in the area where the toolkit used to sit. Since you have a GT you obviously don't need the MCCruise, so maybe you can get away with just ditching the OEM toolkit? It's pretty useless anyway. 

[KeithQ]

I was going to put the block under the bracket as you did. The tool kit, and I use the term quite loosely, is actually embedded under the passenger seat. The issue is how the inline fuses and the relay are close enough to the battery connectors, there just isn't much you can do but keep them close. I will likely end up clipping some of the tie wraps holding the Yamaha relays in place and see if I can scootch them over some.

Next trick will be to locate at least two places to tie in for switched power. Need one for the fuse box and one for the fog lights. Trying to get the tail light wires loose, even as we speak! Thanks for the pix. That is always appreciated. 

[BBB]

@KeithQ, there are spare switched outlets under the windscreen.

[KeithQ]

I will see if I can locate them, thanks!

[Kevin R]

On 10/28/2020 at 10:37 AM, draco_1967 said:

Yeah, the fit is a little different on the 2019+. I had to open up the bend angle of the bracket for it to even clear the bottom of the plastics. 

Following up on draco_1967's comments about the Adventuretech light bar fitment on newer Tracer 900. I just purchased the mount last week but before I did I asked Rick at Adventuretech if there had been any updates to the design to fit the newer bikes better (there haven't been any changes). At first I just bolted it on with no modification but could quickly see that it was going to be very close to, if not actually interfering with, part of the headlight adjusters on both sides, as draco_1967 mentioned in another thread. See the red circle in the photo below.

With the light bar design as is, it's possible that if it is pushed up as high as it can go in the slot where it's mounted on the bike (see the thin, slotted subframe metal to the right and down a bit in the photo above) it might not touch the adjuster housing. But since the mount didn't fit my 2019 GT very well, sliding it up enough to [potentially] clear the interference wasn't an option. I didn't want to take a chance of the adjuster flange getting damaged or otherwise affecting the mechanism so I modified the light bar as shown below.

After that I bolted it up but found that it was placing a LOT of pressure on the plastic under the headlight (and the subframe mount, too). Figuring that it might lead to stress cracking in the future, I modified the bend as draco_1967 did. See photo below which shows about a 10deg bend adjustment on the first of the two arms of the light bar.

After bending the second one and re-installing, the fit was much better. I could choose how close to touching the plastic under the headlights to place it by sliding it up or down in the slotted hole on the submount (some touching will probably be helpful to minimize light bouncing, as keithu mentioned).

Below are a couple photos showing the light bar on my bike before and after bending it. Pretty hard to see the difference at a glance but I'll rest better knowing that it is not putting too much stress on the plastic and the little subframe that it is mounted to behind the headlights.

Adventuretech light bar installation before bending it to get better clearance around the plastic below the headlights.

 

After bending the Adventuretech light bar. It is now just lightly touching the plastic under the headlights.

 

I'll send feedback to Rick at Adventuretech and he can decide whether or not to update to make Tracer fitments better. As it stands now it's a little dodgy as delivered but still workable if folks don't mind spending time modifying it. Personally, for $50 I would like it better if it just fit out of the box.

[Fzrcraig]

I bought the bracket from the Yamaha OEM kit (ordered it from Europe) and added small Denali lights to it. Bright as F.