Installing Kimpex grip heaters on an SV650X:

Date: Thursday, November 18, 1999 From: Jon Diaz I mentioned the other day that I had purchased a grip heater kit made by Kimpex for $30, available from Tucker-Rocky (IOW, any dealer can get it) in the states. The kit installation looked pretty straightforward, except for packaging of the HI-OFF-LO switch that comes with the unit....it is designed to mount in a panel, and of course with the SVX being a naked bike, there are no panels to speak of. I disassembled the instrument cluster a couple of times to find a nice spot for it, but didn't come up with any place that I was willing to attempt a mount. My wife and I scoured the local Radio Shack and a hardware store to try and find some sort of switch that was weather protected and could be attached via screws and/or double sided foam tape to the side of the instrument pod. I had a perfect switch for this function, currently residing on my R1100RS, but sadly it only provided off/on action, and the Kimpex heaters have a high and low setting that I really wanted to take advantage of. So we agreed that we had to fit the stock switch to the bike somehow. I had some sheet metal brackets laying about from other projects that we considered. We played with those for awhile, and nothing really materialized. I thought about adding the switch to the headlight bucket itself, but it was kind of a long reach from the seat while I was riding. But then we thought about it.....why not the left headlight ear? If the switch could mount in there, the wiring run from the switch to the power source would be short, and its pretty much a non-noticeable location. Figuring that it would only cost about $20 to get a new headlight ear if this didn't work out, I pulled out the drill and the hole was ready five minutes later. :) The stock grips were removed, and the adhesive cleaned up with GooGone and alcohol. We installed the left heater, and routed the wires along the wire bundle with the turn signal wiring. Since Kimpex puts their wiring in a piece of black heat shrink tubing, the wires are barely distinguishable from stock. We removed the headlight and routed the wires from the left grip down into the bucket. The right grip was a little more difficult. Suzuki has molded their plastic throttle housing with some fairly intricate details to ensure that we only use their grips from now on. No matter.....we stuck the insert right over it, and then struggled to slide the grip over top. The grip put up a good fight, but eventually slid into place. I think it still needs a little adjustment, but we have all winter to play with that. We again routed the wires along the stock wiring for the right hand switch housing, although this time we left a little extra material to allow to throttle grip rotation. The wires were routed into the backside of the headlight bucket. The SVX has a spare connector in the headlight bucket with switched power and ground, presumably to run the running light over the headlights on the SVS model. The joy of this power source is that it only comes on with the key, meaning that the grips can't drain the battery if accidentally left on. I don't think one can fully appreciate the joys of switched power until they've greeted a bike with a dead battery after a long day at work. :) The power draw of the grips would be similar to that of the running light.....the grips draw 2A on high and 1+A on low, and that's well within the capabilities of 20-22ga wire. Kimpex provides crimp connectors for the job (including spares in case you mess one or two up!), as well as sufficient wire ties to Make things tidy. Once we shortened the wires to the desired length, Sue crimped on the new connectors. I had a large rubber boot in my collection of parts that fit snugly over the back of the switch assembly, and after feeding the wires to the switch and sliding them on, we pulled the rubber boot over the back of the switch, and installed the switch in the left headlight ear. It came out very unobtrusive. The only thing left was power. There is one power lead from the switch to connect to power, and two grounds that need to be hooked up. We just twisted and taped them for the time being to prove that everything works, and will go back and solder later. After finishing, I tied everything into a neat bundle, and tucked it back away from the backside of the headlight shell with the rest of the stuff that is in there. We connected the battery and fired 'em up. Immediately the right grip got hot (I guess because its insulated from the steel handlebar), and the left one slowly got hotter. After putting the bike back together, we started it and let it idle for a bit, and things got even hotter. Then my wife went for a little ride around the block, and when she came back the things were just smoking! Lotta heat in that little package! After two weeks of use, they seem to work great!