Vintage Veloce™

Here are a few pictures of my 2020 Husqvarana Svartpilen 401 with the KiWAV Magazi CleaverII Mirrors and Wono Sequential LED Turn Signals.

Note that you will need an LED Flasher Relay so that the LEDs do not blink too quickly. (Also note that the stock relay is attached to a short cable pigtail. You need to remove the relay AND the pigtail so that the new LED relay will fit. Also note you need to change the pinout of the connector. There is a good description here on vipilenforum.com

The KiWAV Magazi CleaverII mirrors weighed 345g each, compared to the stock mirrors that were 342g. They also have an "aspheric convex lens". Note the vertical line in the mirror: the mirror is fairly flat inside of that line, but on the outside it curves away more rapidly. This can help you to see further out to the side of the motorcycle.

The Vintage Veloce custom license plate mount.

The original ugly and heavy "possum catcher" plate mount and fender.

The tail section of the 2020 Husqvarna Svartpilen and Vitpilen 401 is different from the earlier years.

At the moment, there are few commercial "Fender Delete" or "Tail Tidy" kits available for the 2020 models. These kits typically consist of a license plate mount and sometimes turn signal mounts. I think the turn signal mounts on the 2020 bikes are fine, so...

So I decided to make my own aluminum license plate mount.

It is important to be aware that it is possible to place the license plate in a location where it will interfere with the rear tire. You must position it high enough that the tire will not hit the plate even when the suspension is fully compressed. Make sure there is more than 150mm of clearance between the tire and mount, plate, bolts, etc.

Below are some basic instructions for making one of these. Dimensions are shown in the photographs below!

The following tools are necessary.

jig saw with the proper blade for cutting metal
a guide for making straight cuts with the jig saw (I used a small steel carpenter square.)
power drill
small hand held "pin" drill (something like this.)
files and emery (wet/dry) sanding paper
various wrenches, hex drivers and other common tools

I used a small 6061 aluminum sheet for the project. It is important to get 6061, as it is stiffer than 3003.

It's also important to get 0.063 thickness, as the thinner stuff will also be too flexible. (It would be quite possible to make this from steel or another type of aluminum, this was just my choice.)

RMP 6061 T6 Aluminum Sheet, 12 Inch x 12 Inch x 0.063 Inch Thickness

I purchased the following parts at my local hardware store. You could definitely choose different size fasteners and paint.

3 x stainless steel M5-0.80 x 12mm bolts (might want a bit longer depending on height of nyloc nuts)
3 x three nyloc nuts (regular nuts will vibrate loose)
6 x stainless steel flat washers to fit (I used SAE sized washers instead of metric as they had a bigger outside diameter.)
flat black spray paint
small zip ties for wiring

I like to use nylon license plate fasteners:

Custom Accessories 93342 Black Nylon License Plate Fastener

And this is the license plate frame I chose:

Rightcar Solutions Motorcycle Silicone License Plate Frame

I also bought this LED light to illuminate the license plate:

Waterproof LED Rear License Plate Light

First I made a cardboard mockup and taped it to the bike.

It looked good to me, so I transferred the outline to the aluminum sheet.

And then I carefully cut the sheet to shape with my jigsaw WITH THE PROPER METAL CUTTING BLADE. Also see in the picture how I used a carpenter's square as a guide so that I could cute nice straight lines.

Here is a picture of the cardboard mockup and the cut aluminum part.

The dimensions are clearly marked in this picture.

I then marked out the four holes for the license plate. The locations for these holes is different is other states and countries. (California dimensions shown further down.) You can do this with a hand drill if you are careful.

I then picked an appropriately size socket and marked nice curves on the corners. I clamped the piece down and used a file to sand down the corners to match the curve. I used a heavy file for shaping and then a finer file to smooth the edges all around the piece.

Here are the locations for a California motorcycle plate, marked in inches. Many other states use these same dimensions. Also note that I have marked the "bend line" 3 cm from the license plate area.

You must be careful if you want a sharp bend in the aluminum. I clamped it right at the edge of my workmate table and then a used board to apply pressure right at the bend line.

Here is how I placed the board, but I did use two hands on both sides and I was careful to apply most of the pressure right at the edge of the table at the bend line. I bent the plate to about 30 degrees.

Now it was time to mark the drill holes. Since the piece is bolted to the the fender, these holes MUST be place in exactly the correct locations. There are all sorts of electronics and brackets under the motorcycle seat that can get in the way, so I picked these locations carefully.

Next I removed the battery and then the fuse holder and the seat latch bolts. You don't have to remove the fuse holder or seat latch but you will need to move them out of the way when drilling!

Under the seat, beneath the seat latch, there is a bolt that holds the tail light in place. See the red arrow.

Directly in front of that bolt, there is a circular molding mark on the fender. See it in the picture below. I then drilled through the center of the circular molding mark from above. This is the center rear mounting hole for the license plate mount.

Then I held the license plate mount up against the underside of the fender using that first rear hole to align everything, and I marked the other holes with a pen. (Note the plate holder is flat and there is a slight curve to the underside of the fender. When you tighten the bolts the mount will curve up against the fender.) I made sure everything was straight and then I used a needle drill to mark the centers of the holes.

Next I pulled the fuse holder out of the way and drilled the holes for the mount from above. Drilling from above reduces any risk of power drilling into anything important. (I did consider removing the rear wheel and drilling from below, but I prefer this method.) You can see it was necessary to pull the fuse holder up and forward.

Here are the completed holes. If you ever choose to remove the plate holder, you can easily plug these holes.

After test fitting the plate mount and then taking it back off (do that!), I prepared the mount for painting. I hand sanded it while wearing gloves (to avoid getting any sweat on the piece that might disturb the paint.)

And then I spray painted it flat black. I let it dry a full 24 hours and the last 6 hours were in the hot sun.

Painted!

Now you need to remove the existing license plate mount / hugger fender / possum catcher, or whatever you call that thing. I'm not going to detail that but it is described in the manual. You do have to remove the plate holder from the actual fender to disconnect the wires for the license plate light!

And you must remove the chain guard and take it apart because the wire runs inside of that. It's kind of a pain, but I carefully pulled the wire out all the way back up the right side of the frame. This requires the removal of several zip ties and you should replace these.

Here I am holding the wire and you can see it goes under the frame tube and into a zip tie.

Here I am pointing to the connector that this wire goes to.

This is how I routed the wire and you can see I have zip tied it to a cable bundle under the seat.

I brought the wire to the battery area, and coiled the extra here before running the end to the new LED plate light (more on that later.)

I weighted this assembly, and it weighs 2546g! That is more than 5.5 pounds! All that weight is hanging off the back of the swingarm; that cannot be good.

Now to install the new plate mount! Put the bolts up through from the bottom of the fender. Be sure to use washers on both sides of the assembly, under the fender and under the seat. Getting the nut on the rear bolt is the hardest. I used a bit of duct tape on a small stick to hold the nut.

I then placed the washer used my stick to start the nut on the bolt.

The other two nuts were easily placed after lifting the fuse holder up and forward.

Here is how I attached the new LED plate light. I just used the double sided tape that came with it to stick it to the underside of the tail light. I did this at night so I could see if I like how it worked and place it as I desired for the best illumination. The LED's inside the unit's housing are not perfectly centered, so I chose to line up the actual LEDs with the center of the plate. (Note, the tail light alone does illuminate the license plate, but is is a red light and that isn't proper. This white LED fixes that.)

Now you just need to replace the seat latch bolts and the fuse holder. Be aware the fuse holder has a snorkel attached to it that goes into the air box. (I'm pointing to that below.) You need to carefully place the snorkel back into it's hole to be able to properly replace the fuse holder. IMPORTANT: The other end of the snorkel is under the fuse holder and open. Make sure the wiring under the fuse holder does not block the open end of the snorkel!

Finally, MAKE SURE THERE IS ENOUGH CLEARANCE BETWEEN YOUR REAR TIRE AND THE PLATE HOLDER. I RECOMMEND MORE THAN 150mm. (Husqvarna specs shows the bike having 150mm of rear wheel travel.)