This evening I decided to pull the front fairing on my Suzuki SV650s off the bike to change the right front blinker. I had read up on how to do the disassembly from SVRider.com and had some vague notions:

• gather my metric allen wrenches and my screwdrivers
• remove the mirrors
• remove the top two screws holding the windscreen (because they attach to the part of the cowl that is attached to the frame).
• remove about 4 other bolts

And the front cowl comes right off…. right? More or less.

It took longer than the 15 minutes that the pros quoted. Partly because I am not accustomed to working with my hands and partly because the cheap allen wrench I had purchased from Lowe’s started falling apart while I was in the disassembly phase.

You need an allen wrench to properly re-assemble it. Sigh… I made do with a screwdriver and grit.

After sucessfully removing the fairing and changing the blinker, it turned out that the harness connector has changed since the bike was manufactured. Maybe the fact that the lens was a different color should have been a clue. Because I pulled the battery out to be charged I won’t know until tomorrow whether I have it wired correctly.

Do I know if I did it right? Nope!

But do I feel satisfied with working on it? You bet!