HMT Brake Light Install - Unexpected Surprises

[SilverSurfer]

I (with the helpful extra hands/eyes of my nearby bud QASAMM) got my HMT Brake Light on today. Here's a twist: The ESI instructions have you doing everything on the right side of the Spyder. Makes sense ... the light cable hole drills in on the top-right of the outer trunk cover exterior panel ... the cable feeds in there, etc.

Well guess what! When I removed the upper fender trim (Step 6), and started looking for the harness ... It was on the LEFT side of the Spyder!?! That's right, the harness was on the opposite side from where the ESI instructions state the light cable is supposed to run. All there was on the right side was a deep hole. What this meant was that I had to route the light cable across and under the outer trunk cover and bring it down on the left side. Fortunately, there's enough cable to use the feed tool to get cable down through the left-side antenna cable channel (even though there's no antenna on the left (yet)). The BIGGEST challenge, however, is that electrical harness is a few inches down in there, very little 'give' or leeway to pull it close, and with only the fender trim off, one plays hell trying to (1) get ahold of it, (2) undo it and (3) snap in the HMT light harness. We ended up taking a long heavy-duty twist tie, making a 'noose' of sorts to get around the lower part of the existing harness connector so it wouldn't slip away. With that in place, we undid the existing connector. Then it took about 20 minutes to get one's hand in just the right position, while maintaining upward pull on the "noose" and at the same time pressing on the ESI connector. I finally heard/felt it snap into place. "Whew!" It had to work ... we were past the point of no return ... because if we couldn't get the ESI connector snapped on, we weren't going to get the stock connector back on either. Alas, it ended as a high-five for Sam and I.

So again, the lessons learned:

(1) Watch out ... because the tail light/brake light harness on your RT may be on either the right OR left of the machine. If on the left, you have to drill the hole as instructed, but run the cable to the left side, under the outer trunk cover.


(2) At least on my Spyder, getting a grip on and holding the existing harness connector was a B$#CH! Be prepared to exercise some ingenuity and caution to find a way of holding it in place, while disconnecting it, connecting in the ESI harness, etc. For a few minutes, Sam and I were thinking I might need to remove the RT side case (Thank goodness we didn't hafta).

(3) ... And just something extra: make sure you leave some slack for the light cable to tuck into the channel on the front side of the trunk hinge. It works real well that way, and once tucked in, you can't even see it. Before re-installing the fender trim, use some electrical tape/twist ties to secure the loose parts of the HMT harness to a nearby cable run.

My previous post talked about incorporating a back-off module. Haven't done that yet. I want to get more information on grounding to make sure it won't throw an error/code. The HMT Brake light works great ... looks great; as many say, it looks like it should have been there in the first place. A dramatic visibility impact, when used just as a brake light (as with a car), back-off/pulse module or not.

Ride Safe!

~ Surfer