TRAIN LIGHT installation with stock brake splitter.

[Scrabble]

I had a heck of a time figuring out a way to install the big 9 inch train light with the stock brake splitter in place, so I figured I would post up my solution. The problem was there wasn't enough clearance between the back of the gauge cluster pods, the light itself, and the bottom of the mounting bracket. With the light in place, those three items were banging into each other and there was no room for headlight adjustment at all. I wound up selling the first train l bought because I just flat out gave up on trying to install it. Everybody and their brother says to just get rid of the stock splitter by upgrading to stainless braided brake lines. But, I am not one to drop money easily and certainly not just for the sake of resolving a clearance issue. Yes, I get that braided lines are an "upgrade". Let's move on. So I bought ANOTHER Suzuki train light. Here's how I made clearance.

First, I drilled holes a little farther back at the top of the ZR7 mounting bracket. This has the effect of moving everything forward and out just a bit. See new holes drilled below. If you have the ZR7 mounting bracket, this will make sense. My holes are the ones on top. (For the record, I also placed some rubber spacers in there because YES, the ZR7 bracket is a WEE bit shorter than the stock ZRX headlight mounting bracket.)

The next thing I did was took a hack saw to the mounting points (tubes / holes) at the bottom of the ZR7 bracket. I think this helps because the ZR7 bracket was in a squeezed "C" position previously. And the train light was inside the "C" shape and thus not allowing enough space between the back of the gauge cluster pods and the bottom of the mounting bracket. The light was either hitting the back of the pods or the bottom of the mounting bracket. Either way is no good. By hack sawing about half the length of those tubes off, I opened up the "C" shape just a wee bit.

There were a couple of other small adjustments I had to make as well. Because the top of the mounting bracket moved outward a bit, it then interferes just a little bit with the bottom of the gauge cluster cover. So I used a drill to scrape off some plastic so the gauge cluster housing would still fit on the gauges. This should probably be done with a dremel tool, but I don't own a dremel tool. Drill worked fine.
The last thing that has to be done - while you have the gauge cluster pods off and are dremeling them - is to take the gauges off and bend the triangle shaped mounting bar back just a wee bit. In effect, you're moving the gauges back toward the rider just a little bit. If you've had all this apart a million times like I have, this all makes sense.
In the end, when you mount everything up with the brake splitter BEHIND the ZR7 mounting bracket, you will have more clearance as a result of all of these mods. And it does help to put the bucket of the headlight into the ears of the mounting bracket before installing the bracket on the bike. Those ears need to be spread just a bit to accommodate that big headlight and it seemed easier for me to do this with the bracket and bucket OFF the bike. See below for results.


Hope this helps. I know this really will only help a small subset of riders....Round headlight guys....subset train light guys....subset guys too cheap to just break down and buy stainless braided brake lines.