Disclaimer: I take no responsibility if you break your bike or radio trying to do anything shown on this site, or for anything inaccurate on this page. Installing non-oem parts my invalidate your warranty, or part of it. Use at your own risk.

Part 1 - General information

After thoroughly researching and talking to others who have installed aftermarket stereos on their BMW's I decided to buy a stereo from Crutchfield.com. They have excellent customer service, reasonable prices, and excellent product information on their website.

I decided to buy a Kenwood radio mainly because of the remote control I could use with it. The R1150RT's radio compartment is closed and locked during riding so it was important to me to get a radio that had a fully functional remote control that would mount on the handle bars easily. I choose the Kenwood KRC-409 because it has nice functions, output, was a good price, and has a great remote (purchased separately). Its a AM / FM / CASSETTE with cd/md changer compatibility, and detachable face for security..

When I ordered it from Crutchfield they included a free OEM radio harness adapter. You just tell them what car you have and they send you the correct harness with wiring directions. They don't have motorcycles listed so I had them send me the harness for a 2001 BMW Z3. As luck would have it, it works perfectly with the R1150RT (although I already knew this from reading about other peoples installs). The only issue with it is you have to cut / file off 4 small plastic tiny buttons on the outer case of the harness adapter so it will fit into the motocycle's harness.

Here is a pic of what Crutchfield sent:

The remote control I bought is the "Kenwood KCA-RC700 Steering Wheel Remote Control"

As you can see its pretty small, but easy to use, and most importantly - fully functional:

Part 2 - Modifications

The Kenwood KRC-409 radio comes with a wiring harness that plugs into the back of the radio. This harness connects to the power source and speakers. I took the harness adapter and using the Kenwood radio owners manual and the crutchfield printout for the adapter hooked the appropriate wires together. There were 7 wires to connect: +12v power, - ground, +12v switched ignition, and the speaker wires: +left, -left, +right, -right. I used the wires designated "front speakers". As you can see on the harness adapter there are a lot of wires. The ones that were not used I removed from the harness adapter to save room in the bottom of the radio box. I simply took a flat screwdriver (or even use a coin) and press the silver bullet shaped heads back through the black adapter body. Very easy to do, and they will snap back in place if you ever need them.

To connect the wires together I went to RadioShack and bought a pack of "Heat Shrink Tubing". RS part # 278-1627B. It comes with sleeves of varying sizes in which you select one bigger than the wire you are connecting, cut a small piece off, and slide it over one of the wires you are connecting. twist the wires together and cover the new connection with the sleeve. Then just heat the sleeve lightly with a match or lighter and it will shrink down and be air/water tight. This stuff is great for automotive use since your wire connections won't rust.. If you have never used it before, practice a couple times since its easy to melt a hole in it with too much heat. Some people have emailed me since the install and advised I should soldier the wires. I haven't gone back and done that but it seems to be holding up well.

Here's what it ends up looking like:

The last modification to do is on the remote control. If you notice above the remote control has a short piece of wire that is connected to the remote IR transmitter eye. You have to extend this wire by cutting it and splicing a longer wire in so that you can position the IR eye in the radio compartment. Remember that the remote control is IR and line-of-sight, so that with the radio compartment closed during riding the remote can't see the radio. That is why we extend the wire and put the IR eye in the radio compartment.

The remote wire is very small gauge and inside the insulation is 2 wires, probably 24 gauge or smaller. The remote is powered by a watch battery so I wanted to use a small wire to cut down on resistance and battery wear. I tried a few small gauge stranded wires but it was extremely hard to strip the insulation off without cutting a few of the strands. I finally decided to use ordinary phone wire - the stuff that runs in the walls of your house. It's solid strand, 24 gauge (I think) and easy to strip if your very careful. Take a look (coin added for reference):

There were four wires in there, I just cut 2 of them off at the end of the insulation.

Next I cut the IR eye wire in half and stripped the wire. The wire has a stranded silver core, surrounded by stranded copper. Be careful stripping the insulation.

Next ever so carefully I spliced the wires and sealed them with heat shrink tubing.

Note: be sure to slip your pieces of heat shrink tubing on before you connect the wires.

I also covered those splices with a bigger, longer piece of heat shrink for protection.

Here is the completed remote:

Part 3 - The install

The Kenwood KRC-409 radio is a standard DIN chassis size. It will slide in the BMW R1150RT metal radio chassis perfectly so I didn't have to use the metal sleeve that came with the Kenwood - therefore also not having to take off the faring for the install. (For those of you that are taking off the faring when doing this, you might consider swapping out the bmw metal sleeve for the kenwoods). There is about a 1/8 inch gap on either side of the radio, between the radio and the side of the BMW chassis The Kenwood radio has 2 small metal "fingers" on each side that stick out to keep the radio from falling deeper into the radio chassis Since I had a small gap, I just took a pair of pliers and pulled those "fingers" out slightly.

Next I plugged my completed harness into the motorcycles connector at the bottom of the radio box, then ever so carefully maneuvered the radio on an angle so that it would drop in without scratching anything. I then connected the harness to the back of the radio, connected the antenna wire and slid the radio into its new home - a perfect fit. The radio comes with a black trim piece that snaps into place making everything look professional.

For the remote, I used some new Velcro strips I had lying around, attached it to the clutch reservoir (where the BMW remote goes) and routed the wire down the bars and into the radio compartment. The IR eye part was velcro'd to the side wall, aiming at the radio. I used 2 wire "zip" ties to hold the wire to some other wires down the handlebars.

Lets look at the final product:

Notes about the Kenwood KRC-409

detachable face
multicolor display with backlight
CR-2 tuner
18 FM/6 AM presets
seek tuning
best stations memory
System Q equalizer
full-logic controls
Dolby B noise reduction
tape EQ
two sets of preamp outputs
CD/MD changer controls
22 watts RMS/45 peak x 4 channels
tape frequency response 30-18,000 Hz
tape signal-to-noise ratio 65 dB
FM sensitivity 9.3 dBf
1-year warranty

The remote will allow you to:

Change volume up / down
Switch between FM1,2,3 and AM, or cd/md functions if you get the optional cd/md changer.
Attenuate - mutes sound to about 1/10th original loudness
Switch source between radio, tape, and off.
Use the << >> buttons to either tune up/down, seek up/down/ or toggle through your presets. You preset this by a button on the radio which tells the radio to either tune, seek, or toggle through presets. Select which one you want the << and >> buttons to do before you ride.
In tape playback mode, the << and >> buttons will rewind or forward to the next song.

Note: The remote is not made to be waterproof. I keep a nice coat of armor-all protectant on it and am somewhat careful when washing the bike. It has gotten wet from time to time without any problems.

Price - from www.crutchfield.com as of July 2001

Kenwood KRC-409 $159.95

Kenwood KCA-RC700 Steering Wheel Remote Control $29.95