Removing the Venture Trunk - SUCCESS

[bpate4home]

Tu Nguyen - @Tutor - has successfully removed the trunk of the '18 Venture to get the Eluder look. With his assistance and permission I pulled from his Facebook posts to create the post below. I also have this in a MS Word and .MHT file formats. I can also make this a PDF to share a little more easily. He deserves full credit for his efforts.

 

Removing Venture Trunk for Eluder Look

 

Tu Nguyen

What started as a question asked by a few became a quest to complete. “Just curious if anyone have removed their trunk. How difficult was it?” I was looking at the mechanic manual and it looks like removing the seat to disconnect the connectors and then removing the 4 bolts that is holding the trunk bracket. I asked for any help, as it would be appreciative. Just trying to have an Eluder look for a bit. Well I did it. Trunk removal successful. Some said ‘nope, can’t do it, too many electronics and many other reasons why we shouldn’t undertake this task. Answering questions from some people on various forums and Facebook groups, I came to a process for completing this vision. From the various comments I answered questions that were brought up concerning parts used, wiring issues, and any error codes when the trunk is remove. So far no problems.

***Also read my reply of IF I COULD DO IT OVER***

Some Cautions that I didn't see: Just be careful when you take the trunk off, don not let it lean back and hit the fender. I don't remember doing it, but there are 2 small dents and scratches where the trunks would of lean back. The trunk is heavy and will definitely cause a dent if falls back to hit the fender. (I'm going to blame the dealership for the scratches and dents just so I feel betterfile:///C:/Users/bpate/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.png)

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First, remove the seat and look under the trunk.

These are the wires to the trunk. I believe that a quick connect would work.

The whole trunk is held in place by the brackets. Left and right is the same. Two bolts per side holding the trunk bracket in place.

The back view. Nothing is holding the trunk up beside the main bracket that requires removing 4 bolts.

 

After I disconnected all the connectors, I fired it up and rode around just to make sure no trouble codes came up. No issues so I ordered wire harness connectors

 

I shortened the original wiring harness so the connectors are hidden when disconnected. I used these parts.

 

Each wire was cut in half and connecting a male and female connector to create a quick release. It wasn't bad, but very tedious. There were 31(it's 31 because antenna and CB have shield wires outside of the little wire that acts as ground wire, same as the USB cable) wires to cut. To reconnect male/female connectors it became a tedious 62-connector project, but it was worth the experiment and I love it. In addition, to make sure the wires don't come lose I soldered all the crimping points. I'm planning to get (I still need to research) electrical grease to put in the connector joints to prevent moisture and corrosion. Yes, when you remove the seat, it looks like there are 5 or 6 wire harness, but when you open up the wrapped up bundles, surprise, there are a load of wires

 

I finished doing my quick wiring connects. I soldered all the wire connections so it will not come apart. It was definitely a tedious job. Took probably close to six hours to finish, but I finally did it. After completion, I sealed the ends with silicon so water cannot get in.

 

Here are the results

 

 

 

 

 

 

This seat does not cover the connectors. I have a 3M clear adhesive wrap right behind where all the connectors are. Now when I reconnect the trunk all the connectors will not be rubbing on the paint and scratching it.

Disconnecting the trunk literally takes less than 30 minutes and 4 bolts is all it takes to remove the trunk. The next issue to address is the part that the Antenna mounts to on an Eluder. I think I want to get it so it can hide the gap between the rear fender and the saddlebags.

 

It fits!!! Eluder seat L molding goes the opposite direction as the Venture seat. Venture L falls inside the hole of the mounting point. Eluder falls behind and slides forward. And yes all your connectors will fit under the mounting point.

 

 

 

 

IF I COULD DO IT OVER: I don't think I would do the rewiring for the disconnect.

Looking at the connectors. If you did not want to do a quick disconnects system, you can individually disconnect the connectors. I would take pictures, and maybe mark the connectors so they match and that way you can reroute the wire back together. There are just 9 or 10 connectors that can be removed quickly. In addition, you are not messing with cutting the wires and possibly voiding the warranty. The only wire set that needs to be rewire is the USB and even that if you don't to cut it you can pull it out, but that might be a pain in the butt. Everything else looks like it disconnects. If I remember right.

 

 

 

 

Final Thoughts:

 

The antenna is the only thing left to connect. But even though the connector is not hooked up to an antenna, I still get decent reception. You know how antenna works, I probably can run 2 wires to the connector and let it touch a metal part on the frame and the whole bike will probably act like an antenna. Haven't tried, but right now it gets decent reception. Plus all my music is on a thumb drive connected to the front USB. I use either my thumb drive or Bluetooth my phone over. Also I have radio tuner app on my phone to play pretty much whatever radio station I want. If I had a CB on mine, the only thing I see necessary would be to connect the CB antenna.

 

Final, Final thoughts

 

I timed it and put the trunk back on. It took me a total of 25 minutes. That is removing the Eluder seat, putting on the trunk (tightening the 4 bolts), reconnect the quick connectors, putting the Venture's seat back on, putting all the panels in place. 25 minutes. (If you didn't do the quick connects, add another 10 minutes to connect all the factory connectors back on.) Like I said in my before, I probably would not do the quick connects, just manually disconnect the connectors that's there.

So removing the trunk and putting it back on is very do able.

 

SIDE NOTE: Having another person to help put it back on will make it a lot easier. That person can lift and move the trunk in place so you can align the bolts. In addition, when tightening the rear bolts, when you think it's tight it's not. When it felt tight, I looked and there was probably another 1/8 of an inch from the bolt washer to the mount left to go to fully tightening it.