The World Is Flat: Sidoarjo Regency, Indonesia

Super cool visuals in this video by rider Zimmi Tanarata and Sports Gear.

"I often compare life to the ocean, in little boat we brave the elements and we wade through the waves to avoid catastrophe, as you keep the horizon in sight..."

Super cool outlook on life, check out his other video here.

2011 Nissan Versa: Trunk Light

This is the follow up to my last blog article, with some added information and pictures. As you can see from the picture above, I drilled a small hole in the stock battery terminal cover, so as to have added protection for my wiring. You can also noticed the previously mentioned soldered on ring terminal and heat shrink covering which connects to the car's battery.

I wanted to keep the stock terminal protector, and by drilling a small hole large enough for my wire, I was able to maintain a rather stock look. I left a bit of slack on the new power wire in the event the battery needed to be serviced, so as not to be a burden in the future.

The power wire makes it's way from the battery to the circuit breaker, where it then makes its way down the fender (behind the fender liner), and through the firewall. From the firewall the power wire makes its way along the door jams(under the carpet).

The power wire terminates at a 4 way junction block located behind the rear, drivers side, seat. I already had this junction block in my spare parts drawer so it cost me nothing. You can find similar ones on EBay for about $6 (CAD).

I ordered two 50cm long 5630SMD waterproof rigid strip light bars from EBay once again, for a cost of about $10 (CAD). 

I ended up using only one of the two light bars, as one proved to provide sufficient lighting

I mounted the light bar to the roof of the trunk, then ran a wire from the distribution block to the positive wire on the light bar (all visible in the photo above).

This is where things got a little tricky, as I wanted the light bar to turn on only when the trunk was opened. However I was unable to determine which factory wire reported an open trunk to the alarm. Originally I was going to install a standard aftermarket alarm trigger switch, which I could have done, but I didn't want to drill holes through trunk. Instead, on my brothers suggestion, I ordered a mercury tilt switch from Ebay at a cost of about $8 (CAD).

A mercury tilt switch is a pretty simple device that sends a signal when its tilted. If I install it properly, it will turn the light bar on when the trunk is opened and turn off the light bar when the trunk is closed.

I installed the mercury switch to the arm of the trunk (there was an existing hole there), ran the wire into the stock wiring loom, so as to keep it looking neat and tidy. The mercury switch attached to the a common ground at one end and the light bar negative wire on the other end.

Everything worked as expected, and now the versa'a trunk is very well lit.

As a side note to those following along, I usually plan through the build ahead of time, then source out my supplies (usually from EBay). I do the actual builds after all my parts have arrived.

Have a comment? Let me know below.

2011 Nissan Versa: Power In The Trunk

Since selling my beloved Nissan Xterra, back in October of 2016, I've been driving Nadia's 2011 Nissan Versa sedan. While the Versa is a great economical car, with lots of room, it's a base model and really doesn't have much in the way of creature comforts. This statement couldn't be more true, when searching for the non existent trunk light. Yes, that's right, this vehicle does not come factory equipped with a trunk light! So I ask, what's the point of having such a large trunk, if you just can't find anything in it?

As you all know this just isn't acceptable, so my first Versa related project would be to add a trunk light. While I had every intent on making this the first project, I quickly discovered that not only was there no trunk light, there didn't seem to be any usable sources of power in the trunk.

I figured I would probably be upgrading the stereo, and adding an amplifier in the future, so I might as well run power from the battery to the trunk, hopefully killing two birds with one stone. Since the Versa would never be getting a high end stereo system, and all we needed was power, I opted to buy an amplifier wiring kit from EBay. The kit cost me about $11 (CAD) which is about 1/3 the cost of similar kits sourced locally.

Even though the amplifier kit came with a inline fuse, I opted to buy a 20 amp inline circuit breaker, also from EBay for about $9 (CAD). If there is ever any trunk related power issues, this $9 investment would pay off, as you never need to search for costly replacement fuses. Also by pressing a button you could disable all power to the trunk, a great safety feature in my eyes.

Since I was shopping on EBay, I also purchased some 8 gauge firewall grommets for about $8 (CAD). While I'm glad I purchased the grommets, I didn't end up using them because there was already a factory hole and grommet in the Versa's firewall, which I ended up using.

I've really become infuriated with how long it takes to get parts from EBay lately, and the fact that most parts don't even show up anymore is ridiculous. With this Versa project however it didn't have that much of an impact, due to all the rain we've been getting I couldn't do anything anyway.

Searching the www revealed that behind the drivers side kick panel, located under the dashboard, was an existing hole in the firewall with a grommet. 

With this knowledge the rest of the project was pretty smooth sailing. I would be running the power wire through the hole found directly behind the wires shown in the photo above. Cutting a small hole in the grommet allowed me to easily push the power wire through both the grommet and the hole. This resulted in a tight seal, so as to not to have any problems with water entering the car in the future.

In order to feed the wire from the grommet to the battery, i needed to remove the drivers side front wheel, and fender liner. This was a bit time consuming, and a little confusing as I couldn't see all the retaining clips initially.

I believe industry standards for car audio require any power wires leading off the battery to have a fuse mounted within 1 foot of the battery. With this in mind I found what I believe to be a suitable location to mount the inline circuit breaker.

I connected the power wire to the battery terminal (I soldered the included ring terminals to the power wire, and protected it using the provided heat shrink tubing), and then secured it to the circuit breaker before pulling the slack back out the drivers side kick panel (the circuit breaker was off). I ran the power wire along the side of the car, under the carpets along with all the factory wiring. I put everything back together, and finished with the first part of this project. I will have more picture in the follow up post.

Have questions or comments, let me know

The World Is Flat: Amsterdam, Netherlands

This video has got a cool, mellow flow to it, just what I needed to put life in perspective. Here we have Gino shredding at the "Casino Amsterdam" in the Netherlands. Check out more videos featuring both Gino and Amsterdam at JD Video.

2005 Yamaha BWS: Taillight & Turn Signals

Following up on the documenting of my front fairing mods, this entry brings you my modifications to the rear taillight and turn signal indicators. I was hoping to replicate something similar to the photo below, which sell at scootertuning.ca for $79.99 (CAD).

After removing the plastic license plate light housing, and the plastic mud flap I was left with something that was starting to look more like my end goal.

The North American YW50 (BWS 50/Zuma 50) does not come with integrated turn signals in the taillight, like it's siblings sold in Europe and Japan. Dismantling the taillight assembly revealed that while it was possible to recreate the European/Japanese integrated turning signals, there was no factory installed wiring. 

As you can clearly see in the above image, the previous owner of my scooter had already integrated lights into the taillight assembly, however they were merely white LED that worked in unison with the brake light.

Seeing as I had unused amber .75" LED turn signal indicators left over from my fairing build, I decided to use them here in replacing the existing white LED lights. This was a simple process of drilling out a .75" hole and pushing the LED through its grommet, which held it in place.

I ordered third party amber turn signal lens from EBay, that would replace the stock red lenses. 

The stock taillight assembly came with a reflector located just below the taillight, which I replaced with a red LED reflector which was also sourced from EBay. The LED reflector was wired into the existing harness to provide a constant low intensity light when riding (for visibility), and a high intensity light when the brakes were applied.

Before I assembled everything, I gave all the exposed lens a good cleaning and sprayed them all with VHT nightshade, to give them all a smoked look. Here is what my finished taillight assembly looks like.

I also added a LED license plate light, which I don't really like, but it will have to do until I find something I like better. You can see how much shorter the newly modified taillight assembly is as the gas drain hose ran the whole distance of the stock taillight assembly.

Hope you enjoyed this update, if you have any questions make comments or send me an email.