Joe Puts A Bonnie Switch & Spitfire Levers On His Thunderbolt
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Hi Mark,
I recently finished installing the aluminum
BSA Spitfire Brake and
Clutch Levers as well as the 76-78 Bonnie
All-In-One Switch. It looks
and works absolutely amazing, and is a major improvement over the
original 71' BSA levers and set-up.
The Switch- it is much cleaner set-up (cannot even see the wires and it
eliminated the clutter on the handlebars). Since this switch has every
action on one switch, it makes it easier to use and find the right
controls. Comparing this to the 71' set up where you have two switches
on each side.
The Spitfire levers- the action to pull these levers in is a lot easier
and more efficient then the 71' set up. The cable adjusters on the
levers is a major improvement because there is a spring clip to keep the
adjuster adjusted and not slip out of adjustment due to vibration.
Installation of the Spitfire levers went easy as cake and emgo did a
very nice job on these levers. The only complication I had was the brake
side. On my bike I used a made-in-England brake cable which has a bigger
cable end at the end of the cable then the emgo cables. Just about 15
minutes of filing fixed this problem. Everything else on the levers was
common sense.
The switch was a little more complicated, but not until I figured out
which wires do what. Surprisingly the color code on the later switch
matches up with the older 71' wiring harness. Purple and black wire was
the horn, red/green wire was the turn signals, etc (which is the same as
the original wires). It is basically a plug and play switch. At first, I
did not know that you had to connect the white wire (power supply to
switch) in until the switch worked. So the first step I would recommend
is to plug in the white wire, then just plug in the others and check it
over one component at a time.
The other thing that I did not know is in
the horn button, there is a flasher for the high beam, it is a blue and
white wire and by pushing up on the horn (instead of in) it will flash
the headlight, but you need a double connector to connect this into the
main harness because the high beam (blue and white wire) goes to the
same wire as the flasher into the harness.
This is a major improvement over the original set-up and would recommend
to anyone who wants to improve the functionality and looks of the early
1970's BSA and Triumph motorcycles, and it does just plug into the
wiring harness. I attached some photos I took on the handlebars to show
you, sorry for the quality of the photos, it was 9pm when I finished and
it was getting dark. Thanks so much for your help and for being my first
stop to finding and getting information on improvements and other things
about my BSA.
-Joe