If you are looking for a light bar for the 1700

wayfarer said:

Problem with the nomad is the stock windshield and lowers keep most light bars from fitting. Classic doesn't have that problem.

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wf, itsa diff bike butt never did like lite bars. i put a pair of off road 4x4 lamps on my roll bars. does the trik. poncho

Sixth Gear said:

Yea
This is an old thread but it would be great if someone found a solution.
THe stuff on Ebay and Amazon that sells for $60.00 gets terrible reviews.
The only other thing available is the $400.00 OEM light bar. There doesn't seem to be anything in between at a reasonable cost.

FYI: If anybody finds something that is decent at a fair price please post here on the 1700 forum.

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I am interested in light bar options as well. I just sold my Harley Davidson CVO I have had since 2005. Well, I traded it for a side x side. I got a nice side x side for it, but I missed it so bad, I wanted another bike. My friend always rides a Kawasaki, and since the Harley's I were looking at were just priced out of site, I decided I would look at Kawasaki. I ended up purchasing a 2010 Kawasaki Nomad 1700 about 3 weeks ago. I couldn't be happier. What a great bike at an affordable price. It is beautiful too. One thing I learned very fast, is everything you try to buy for a Kaw or any metric bike, is outrageous and makes me feel like they are taking advantage of me. I work hard for what I have as I am sure you guys do also. So, I thought I would do some experimenting. This is where it gets fun. I decided I am going to put an HD light bar, lower fairings, and HD tour pack on my bike. (aftermarket of course). You can buy anything for a Harley dirt cheap these days because many companies are manufacturing parts for them. I took a chance and bought a light bar specifically for a Harley touring as it looked like one I could modify to make fit. Well guess what? It almost fits just like it is. I mocked it up (without removing the original signal bar) but could tell right away, the width of the brackets were within a half cm, and will work just fine. It appears the bottom mount will fit right where my windshield bottom mount is. I will post back here once I actually get it mounted. I have a lot of changes to make, including replacing stock crash bars with HD crash bar so lower fairings will fit. I already mocked this up as well, sure the bar would fit pretty easy, but HD bar isn't wide enough, our bikes are wider frame than the HD touring bikes. Simple fix, I just cut the HD crash bar in half so I could slide it out to where it needs to be for the lower fairing to fit. I have it mocked up, and I went to Menards yesterday and bought some steel and aluminum flat stock to make brackets for he new crash bars. I will post pictures of them once I get them on. I also ordered a ton of quick connect hardware, and an HD touring Tour pack mount luggage rack style. I am going to make the tour pack quick release, as well as a fairing I am going to install, it will also be quick release, I may even make the lightbar quick release, just because I have the hardware, but its not necessary. I will take pics of all of it, heck I might even do video's on each piece. My goal here is to save money, and if it helps a few others save a few bucks, then I am all for it. I am also going to put LED signal lights on it. I have bought a few Harley close out rear light bars, signals, etc. I may end up just using the bullets off a light bar and retrofit them to stock signal mount on rear, I don't know yet. Anyway, I hope once I get this figured out, this will save some dough for everyone. The HD light bar I purchased was only 34.99 I believe. It doesn't have a lights on it, but I had to make sure it would fit first. I will order LED passing lamps and retrofit signals to work.

this is just mocked up with zip tie holding it up. It’s a Harley crash bar that I cut in half. It will look natural once I get some nice brackets made for it. I’ll work on the light bar soon and post pics of it also.

Tourer said:

Hi Big John. Thanks for this information. Light bars are expensive and it is great you have a money saving solution. Any pictures you have would be appreciated.

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This is the bracket I bought. Those bottom mount slots marked by arrows, already line up with bottom windshield mount bolts. I have to do a little more investigating to see where upper slots will match up on the nomad. I think this one will be an easy fit. I may do this Monday. If I do, I will return and post pics. I will do same for crash bars, and the same for Harley tour pack I want to install, also with quick release brackets.

Ok. I’m trying to set up my windshield as quick release without buying the 415 dollar brackets to do so. I’m doing this because I also have a batwing fairing I am wanting to switch back and forth whenever I feel the need. So, I am having to modify this Harley light bar to be permanently mounted ( bolted on ) so it will not interfere with quick connect or release of the fairing or my original nomad windshield. So I had to drill the light bar bracket to lower it so fairing will clear it. The pic here is how it will ride, and where lights will sit. When I get done, I will trim the bottom of light bar bracket on both sides to get rid of that unsightly lower bolt slot that won’t be used. I will also extend the bracket up to top windshield bracket bolt hole by bolting a piece of flat stock aluminum to the light bar bracket at top bolt slot on both sides. Looks like I’ll add about 3 inches to it. Pretty simple so far. I have 34.99 in light bar, 10 bucks in aluminum. However, if you are NOT going to use a fairing and stick with stock windshield, you won’t need to extend the bracket at all, just drill a hole in the side of your windshield brackets where it matches the light bar bracket, and bolt it with a nice shiny matching machined bolt. If I weren’t doing quick release, fairing AND windshield, this would be easy. It’s already the right width.