When you start any upgrade job you will normally find that it leads you onto others that you did not foresee.

So far this has led me into the fuel tank repair, I had anticipated retouching its paint but not the leak repair and full repaint that will need and now I have to redo the wiring for the rear lights and sidecar.

This has been done with a length of “choccy block” connector between the main loom and the rear light unit, it’s effective but not ideal, especially when exposed to the weather as it is on a bike. What I intend is to get a pair of 6-way vehicle connectors that will use 6.3mm spade terminals in place of the current terminal block.

For the bike’s rear lights I only need 4 wires, ground, light, stop light and left indicator but for the sidecar there’s these 4, the other indicator and the spotlight, (as I tow a small camping trailer with the outfit I need power for both indicators to the sidecar).

Equally, as standard the Earles fork model BMW had a DIN jack socket under the saddle. Originally this was wired in to the sidelight circuit and was the supply to the sidecar’s running light but when I fitted the sidecar, rather than just the running light, I also fitted it with an indicator and a stop light (remember I run with a right-handed sidecar in the UK) and later added the spotlight.

What I’m doing now is replacing the mare’s nest of connectors and wires between the two with a multiconnector and the DIN socket will become a permanent live socket that I can use to power the tent lights, run a mini tyre pump etc and to charge the battery if needs be.

I have a choice here as to the wire colours. The bike is a BMW and uses the DIN standard wire colour code.

I have a tow hitch on the outfit and this matches the standard trailer wiring code and so the two have to join somewhere.

What I’ve decided is that this will be at the sidecar/bike junction so all the wiring on the sidecar itself will follow the trailer colour code.

This has the advantage that I can use standard trailer cable for the wiring loom of the sidecar and not have to make up my own bundle, I only need 5 connections so I’ll use a 6-way connector block between the two and slide a length of pedal cycle inner tube over it for weatherproofing.