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KTM 690 SMR Tail tidy

  •  KTM 690 SMR Tail tidy
  •  KTM 690 SMR Tail tidy
  •  KTM 690 SMR Tail tidy
  •  KTM 690 SMR Tail tidy
  •  KTM 690 SMR Tail tidy
  •  KTM 690 SMR Tail tidy
  •  KTM 690 SMR Tail tidy
  •  KTM 690 SMR Tail tidy

September 2009


There is one design aspect of the SM I never got used too... That HIDEOUS long stock rear fender and license plate holder! Looking like some sort of rear beak it must be the result of various regulations for the position of the license plate & indicators in countries Worldwide. And a vain attempt trying to keep it within the SMs design at the same time. But in my view it totally breaks the design and lines of the bike and looks pit ugly. When you fit the full Ti Akrapovic exhaust for the SM like I did, things get even worse! The indicators need to be moved down on a bracket at the license plate. Aarrrgghhh!!...

There are quite a few tail tidies on the market but they all have the same problem; they don't fit with the Akra system for the SM unless you either drop the indicators and/or have a small license plate. If you have the Akra system without passenger pegs, the cans are held in place with a carbon 'bridge' that is mounted on the same bolts that hold the rear fender. This makes things more complicated.

Looking at different tail tidies and the efforts from fellow SM owners, I decided to have a go with the tail tidy from Evotech Italy. There's also a UK company called Evotech and they also make a tail tidy for the 690s but this is different company and a different tail tidy. The Italian Evotech is beautifully made from laser cut alloy including the license plate support and indicator brackets. The small license plate light with 4 LEDs is CNC machined alloy. Everything is anodized black and all nuts'n bolts are from stainless. Really good looking!

The first thing to tackle was to keep the mounting of the Akra system unchanged while fitting the tail tidy at the same time. You don't want that expensive piece of Akra carbon holding the cans cracking leaving them dangling in the air... I did this by sawing out the triangular piece from the stock rear fender that holds the carbon bridge from the Akra with a fretsaw. It slots neatly and invisible under the carbon plate keeping the construction exactly like it was and holding the tail tidy.

Next up was the license plate itself. The tail tidy puts the license plate between the cans. This is also the only place that looks good but there is only some 185mm of space between the cans near the exits. A legal NL plate is too big for that. I found a shop that was willing to make a slightly smaller (thus illegal) plate and make it look as close to a legal plate as possible. This one is 25mm narrower and 10mm lower than legal. Time will tell how easy 'the law' will spot it and how they deal with it... But it slots tightly between the Akra cans as if it was made for it... which it is... :-) The clearance between the plate and cans is only some 3mm on each side but it doesn't touch them when riding.

The indicators were up next. The sleek and slim design of the tail tidy ruled out the big stock indicators. I choose the alloy Micro Rhombus LED indicators from Kellermann Germany. Front & rear 'cos I think they must be the same. Kellermans are very expensive but by far the best looking indicators I know. The angular design of the Micro Rhombus really fits the same angular design of the bike imo. At the front I covered the position holes for the stock indicators with small oval plastic stickers that come with the Akra system for the SM (to cover the mounting points of the rear indicators). Neat.
LED indicators use a lot less power than normal bulbs and this makes the indicators blink way too fast (due to less load on the indicator relay). This can be solved by either fitting a load independent relay or fit a power resistor parallel to the indicators for each side of the bike. The resistance value determines the blinking frequency. In my case a 10 Ohm power resistor left and right was needed to get the indicators blinking at a normal speed again. They sit behind the headlight. 

The last step was wrapping up the wiring and this was more work than expected. The wiring uses connectors for the indicators and plate light and has lots of space 'in' the stock rear fender. With the tail tidy I wanted to make the wiring as invisible as possible to keep a clean look. The Kellermann indicators and Evotech plate light are all LEDs and use very thin wires. After working out different options we decided to cut the stock wiring as short as possible and soldered the new thin 'LED-wires' to the bikes' existing wires and removed the 3 connectors used in the stock wiring  (the experienced soldering fingers of a friend helped really well here!). Each wire is shrink sleeved individually and they're all sleeved together into a new thin mini-wiring loom. Strapped to the inside of the tail tidy with cable ties it's almost invisible and sits very sturdy.

All together it was a lot of work but I am VERY happy with the result!

Before & after pics

Before:



And after:


I think it makes a huge improvement to the overall appearance of the bike. It also makes the Akra system look as it should.

Finally the SMR has the look I think it deserves!


Last modified: 28-09-2009