The rear end of the Vstrom is one of the butt ugliest known to man - so lets fix it!

You can see the stock rear mud flap hangs down covering about 1/2 of the rear tire. Very functional but this is one time where aestetics trumps function on my bike. I just could not live with this abomination. I wanted to move the plate between the mufflers but had a couple of items to overcome. First, it would cover the key access for removing the seat (or in my case the latch for the aux fuel platform). Second, it would wipe out the license plate light feature which is required and can be something you can be stopped for and ticketed (now there is a waste of time!).

I decided that if I cut off the fender just below the license plate light and if I removed the light I could use the two holes through the plastic apron for mounting whatever I came up with. This would effectively move the license plate up about 6 inches and put it just below the tail light.

I knew that I could use a spring loaded cupboard latch with two flat mounting plates to make the license fold down and then spring back into place, but was not sure how secure the mounting would be. I fashioned two plates from 1/8 aluminum sheet. One was the size of the license plate and the second was the size of the mounting plate for the hinge with two holes drilled in it to attach to the Plastic fender apron.

I carefully fashioned the smaller plate and drilled the two holes to attach to the bike. Then I drilled the thwo holes to match the mounting plate for the hinge. I then make a plate approximately the size of the license plate and drilled a pattern in it to match the license plate and, down in the bottom, a three hole pattern to match the other attach plate of the hinge. the Idea was to attach the two plates together with the hinge at the bottom so they would fold down (apart). Attach the whole assembly to the bike with the small plate and attach the license to the larger Plate. All was fine until I tried to assemble and found that the bolts and plates had a build up and would not let the two plates get close enough together to seat the hinge in the folded position.

It was also heavy and I was afraid it would fold down on it's own when hitting a sharp bump. So I cut out the large plate into a "U" shape removing the center of the plate. Then I ground the smaller plate into the shape of a clover leaf to allow for clearance of the three attach bolts holding the large plate to the hinge when folded. You can see the result in the picture above.

Next was the issue of the license plate lights. I decided to get a pair of illuminated bolts and use them to attach the top of the license plate. I attached those to the existing light pigtail and then duct taped it to the rear of the plate to keep it in place so it would not rub a short into the line. It is carefuly routed so that when the assembly folds the wire sits in the clover shaped hole in the rear (small) plate. This works great but I will admit these lights illuminate almost NOTHING - but I believe it does satisfy the legal requirement.

Finally as a precaution to the assembly still folding open when on the road, I did put a lanyard from the top left bolt on the license plate to the rear apron attach bolt. You can see that in the accompanying picture. This allows the plate to partially fold back but not enough to reach "the point of no return". This has worked well and in some 9,000 miles of use I have not found the license plate in the folded position once (It actually cannot completely fold down with the lanyard). For that matter it has never been in a position other than perpendicular!

The resulting assembly relocating the license plate does it's job very well and while there is not much clearance between the plate and the mufflers there is no heat build up.