Note: my bike is a 1999 K1100LT EU spec with 22mm strap-ons, no heated grips and bar-end mirrors.
To whom it may concern,
I have not really found a concise guide about the following yet after looking online extensively so I figured I'd post my findings here in hopes it might help someone.
I have been riding my cafe K11 for about 4000 km and I love ALMOST everything about it. There are two things that have bothered me since the beginning and still bother me every time I ride it: the insane throttle stroke and the indicators. I've been told to just get used to it, but after all this time I still hate it and sometimes they even hurt my thumb and wrist. It's finally time to change it up.
Because of the ingenius switchgears (I can't lie, they are super well-designed by BMW), you can't really change one thing about the handlebars/switchgears without changing all of it out. So I started by seeing what needed to be done to get a universal aftermarket indicator switch (L/R toggle on the left handlebar) and a Domino quick-throttle.
I started by taking the whole right switchgear apart. This is very easy, just look closely and you'll find a few screws that hold everything together. If you take everything apart you'll be left with the brake master cylinder + brake reservoir and brake lever as one component, the throttle as one component and the switchgear as one component. On the left side, the clutch + choke is one component and the switchgear is another.
Here's what I wanted:
Right handlebar:
OEM brake master cylinder and lever and reservoir, since they work well and I'm not as confident in fiddling with the brakes as I am with electrics.
Domino universal kill/run/start switch.
Domino universal quick throttle with a 57mm stroke and 1,9 degree/mm quickness.
Left handlebar:
Domino switchgear with low beam/high beam switch, indicator toggle and horn.
Domino universal clutch perch with choke.
Because of how the clutch perch is designed, it's impossible to fit an aftermarket switchgear on the handlebar. There's just not enough space. For that reason I chose to go with a domino clutch lever with choke switch as well. I have measured the OEM clutch and throttle cables and routing extensively and found that the universal options offered by Domino work.
To get everything to fit on the right handlebar with the OEM brake stuff, a Dremel is required to cut excess bulk on the brake perch off. A lot of it is only used to mount the OEM switch gear and throttle, so it's safe to cut into it if you're careful. By looking carefully you can see where the brake master cylinder and reservoir operate so you should be able to safely cut around those. You could always get an aftermarket brake master cylinder and reservoir with lever too if you understandibly don't want to do that.
Assembling the throttle, choke and clutch speaks for itself. Installation is basically the reverse of removal. Depending on which items you get you may have to modify the cables a bit to fit. I had to shave off a little bit of the throttle cable end barrel to fit inside the Domino throttle housing, otherwise it would bind.
Then comes the fun part, electrics. Because many universal options are offered I won't include exactly how I wire up the new switchgear, but I will provide wiring details for the OEM stuff so you can just match that to your aftermarket switches. What I did was I measured continuity between wires while pressing all buttons on the switches. That way I found out which buttons activate which circuits. If you map this out, you can just duplicate that on your new switch and everything should work.
OEM wiring:
Right handlebar connector:
Killswitch on the OFF position: no wires activated.
Killswitch on the ON position: pin #2 green/yellow to fuel pump relay and pin #9 green switched 12v.
Killswitch starter button: pin #1 black/yellow ground and pin #6 black/green switched 12v.
Parking lights: pin #3 blue/green switched 12v, to LH connector pin #8 and pin #7 gray/blue ground.
Low beam: pins #3 and #7 like for the parking lights AND pin #4 yellow/white, goes to LH pin #7.
Indicator R: pin #5 blue/yellow switched 12v and pin #8 brown ground (common with indicator cancel).
Indicator cancel: pin #8 brown ground (common with indicator R) and pin #10 brown/white switched 12v.
LH connector:
Low beam: pin #7 white/yellow, goes to RH pin #4 (common with high beam) and pin #4 yellow goes to headlight.
High beam: pin #7 white/yellow, goes to RH pin #4 (common with low beam) and pin #1 white goes to headlight.
Horns: pin #2 brown/yellow switched 12v and pin #6 brown ground (common with indicator L).
Indicator L: pin #6 brown ground (common with horns) and pin #3 brown/blue switched 12v.
Pass/flashing high beam: pin #1 white (common with high beam) goes to headlight and pin #8 blue/green switched 12v, goes to RH pin #3.
This may all look a bit confusing but I'd recommend mapping this in an excel sheet or table. If you make sure all these connections activate the same way when pressing your aftermarket buttons, all is well. You can even just splice the wires on your aftermarket switchgear into your existing handlebar loom so you can reuse the OEM connectors.
Some notes:
The indicators are weird on the BMW because they have a seperate cancel button and the indicator buttons are momentary. Pressing this cancel button grounds RH #10 brown/white. Ideally you would have an aftermarket switch that also has a physical cancel button so you can wire this up. Mine doesn't. But I found out that if you keep the cancel circuit permanently grounded (so just connect the brown/white wire to a ground) it will work if you have a latching indicator button (so the toggle stays left until you reset it to its neutral position).
In other words OEM: indicator pressed: momentary ON, stays ON until canceled or self-cancels. Aftermarket: indicator pressed: latching ON, stays ON until reset to neutral. You can test this by keeping the cancel button pressed and then pressing the indicator button on your OEM switchgear. The indicators will turn on but only for as long as you hold it pressed.
Then the headlight situation: on the OEM switchgear the lights basically get stacked. Since you have to manually go from OFF -> parking lights -> low beam and the high beam only works when the low beam is on (except for the passing/flashing button which will always work but is momentary) you first get parking lights, THEN low beam gets added onto the parking lights, THEN the high beam gets added to the parking lights and low beam. Because on my new switch I only have 2 settings: low beam and high beam, I need to wire it up so that when the low beam setting is on, the parking lights AND the low beam are connected at the same time. I just crimp the wires for those connections together so there's no seperate parking light circuit anymore.
Bit of an information dump but if I can help at least one person with this I'll be satisfied. I am by no means an expert and these are all just my own findings so also feel free to correct me where needed. If there are any questions I will try to answer them best I can. I'll also try to post some pictures later.
