• centerstand kit from RiderHaus
• 6mm hex (allen) wrench
• 10mm hex (allen) wrench
• 12mm socket
• 14mm socket
• Some sort of alternate way of keeping the bike upright (other than the sidestand) for about 10 minutes -- another stand, a friend, whatever

• ~16 gauge wire (an unraveled coat hanger, for example)
• Ratchet lashing

background.
One of the few things about the SV650S that make me scratch my head in wonder is the lack of a centerstand. Having a centerstand makes maintenance so much easier: cleaning and lubing the chain is suddenly effortless, and the rear wheel can be removed completely without suspending the bike. Thankfully, RiderHaus in Germany provides a nice aftermarket centerstand at a reasonable cost (around $120 USD).

The directions which come with the parts are all in German, but the illustrations are fairly clear. You can find RiderHaus's English translation of the directions here (ignore their instruction to remove the exhaust mount bolt, though -- you don't need to do that!). Tom Chapel also has a great set of pictures/directions here, which is what I used to do my installation. Thanks as always, Tom!

pre-procedure.
None, really. Just gather together your tools and the parts from the kit. I recommend taking a minute and looking at the bike and the centerstand brackets, and just getting a good idea of what goes where. If you hold the bracket up to the side of the bike and figure out where the bolts are, etc., it makes the actual installation really amazingly easy.

procedure.
First off, let's get the righthand bracket mounted -- that's the large silver piece which came in your kit. It's painted silver to more closely match the silver frame. Now, just to keep you on your toes, the very first thing that you'll do to get the righthand bracket mounted is remove a nut on the lefthand side of the bike. It's the locknut for the engine mounting through-bolt, which passes all the way underneath your SV. So, head on over to the lefthand side of the bike, and locate the engine mounting through-bolt locknut.

Remove the nut with a 14mm socket. Give the end of the bolt a nice tap with your wrench, and then head back to the righthand side of the bike and pull the through-bolt out. The centerstand kit comes with a new through-bolt and locknut, so feel free to toss the old one, save it just in case, sell it on Ebay, whatever.

The next couple of bolts that we're going to remove are the two bolts securing the footpeg plate on the righthand side of the bike. Remove both of those with a 6mm hex wrench. In order to remove the lower of the two bolts, I had to hold the brake lever down to keep it out of the way. Depending on how your brake lever is adjusted, you might have to readjust it, using the adjust screw just to the left of the footpeg plate, to keep the lever out of your way. Make sure to readjust the lever if necessary once you're done installing the centerstand.

Hang on to one of the two footpeg plate bolts (it doesn't matter which one; they're identical), but you're going to be replacing the other one, so feel free to add it to the Ebay pile, too. Go through the hardware which came with your centerstand, and pick out the shiny silver bolt that's, well, the same size as the bolts you just removed from the footpeg plate. Also grab the smallest spacer that came in the kit -- it's the thing that looks like a slightly-thicker-than-normal washer.

Hold the footpeg plate away from the bolt holes that you just opened up. Take the spacer and put it in front of the top bolt hole, behind the footpeg plate. Now grab the righthand centerstand bracket and put it into place. This is all possible with one person, but it really helps to have a second pair of hands here, holding the footpeg plate away or keeping the brake lever out of your way. Make sure that the topmost hole in the centerstand bracket aligns with bottom footpeg plate bolt hole, but is behind the footpeg plate. The rightmost hole in the bracket should be over the hole from the engine mounting through-bolt.

Replace the bottom footpeg plate bolt, and insert the new footpeg plate bolt into the top bolt hole. Finger-tighten the bolts just enough so that the bracket won't fall off.

Now we'll insert the new engine mounting through-bolt. Go through your bag o' parts from RiderHaus and grab your new engine mounting through-bolt, the new locknut, the two identical-looking washers, and the largest spacer.

The large spacer is going to go behind the centerstand bracket, in front of the engine mounting through-bolt hole. Gently pull the centerstand bracket away from the frame of the bike, and slide the spacer into the recess in front of the bolt hole.

Put one of the washers onto the new engine mounting through-bolt, and slide the bolt into the bolt hole. When it's pushed all the way in, go around to the lefthand side of the bike, slide the other washer on, and finger-tighten the locknut.

That's it for the righthand bracket installation! Now let's install the lefthand bracket.

For this side, you're definitely going to need a second person or some other way to keep the bike upright. This is because the lefthand bracket fits on behind the sidestand plate, so you're going to need to remove the sidestand.

Once you've got your bike secure, remove the two sidestand bolts with a 10mm hex wrench. Pull the sidestand away from the bike, but be gentle, because the sidestand sensor is still attached. Position the lefthand centerstand bracket behind the sidestand plate so that the bolts match up, and reinsert the bolts. I found that the stock bolts were long enough to compensate for the extra thickness of the centerstand bracket.

This step was the hardest part of the installation for me, because I found it difficult to hold the heavy bracket and the heavy sidestand in place while laying on my stomach trying to insert the bolts. Take it slowly and curse if necessary, and you should be OK.

Don't torque the bolts yet, but tighten them enough so that you're confident that they'll support the weight of the bike. Once you've done this, you can shoo away your friend, and go back to using the sidestand to keep the bike upright.

Now the brackets are installed, so we've just got to actually attach the centerstand! This is pretty easy; the horizontal pegs at the top of the stand slip into the horizontal holes in the brackets. Hold the centerstand so that the pegs face to the right. Slide the lefthand peg in first, and then the righthand one. The pegs are the exact same size as the holes in the brackets, so it took me a few tries on each side to push the peg in straight, but you'll eventually hit the correct angle and the peg will just slide into the hole.

Once both sides are in, take the two large washers and two cotter pins from your bag of parts. Slide one washer onto each peg, and push the cotter pin through the hole in the peg. Be sure to bend the ends of the cotter pins away from the center so that the pin doesn't come out (I hadn't done this yet in the picture; sorry).

Now that this is all done, go back and tighten and torque all the bolts you attached. Use the following torque values:

• Engine mounting through-bolt: 40 ft/lb
• Sidestand bracket bolts: 21 ft/lb
• Footpeg plate bolts: 21 ft/lb

Next, we're going to attach the spring. As anyone who's installed this centerstand will tell you, the spring's the hardest part. However, we found that by using some medium-gauge wire and a ratchet lashing, installing the spring was remarkably easy. First off, notice that there are two vertical holes in the righthand centerstand bracket. The circular one is for the little rubber stopper that came with the kit. The square one is for the spring. With a little bit of twisting and pushing, you can get one end of the spring into that square hole without too much difficulty.

So, here's how to do the rest of the spring using our method. Coil the wire into a loop, with one end around the bottom hooks of the spring, and the other end around the ratchet lashing hook.

Again, with someone securing the bike (or at least holding the brake down), use the ratchet lashing to stretch out the spring to the correct length. [Note: Make sure your wire will hold under the pressure of the ratchet lashing and the spring BEFORE you put pressure on it! Until the spring is securely in the centerstand notch, DO NOT relieve the pressure on the ratchet lashing!!! Keeping your optic nerves intact is priority number one here at bluepoof.com!] Using the thin wire, guide the spring into the notch cut into the centerstand. Unwind the wire and remove it from the ratchet lashing and spring.

The very last step now, before you're done, is to check your brake light. There's a small cable that runs from your brake lever to an adjust screw, and then to a sensor which illuminates your brake light when you press on the lever. Since you inserted the spacer behind the footpeg plate, you essentially put pressure on this cable, which means that the sensor thinks your brake lever is pressed, and will keep the brake light illuminated. Turn the key in your bike and note your taillight. Press on the brake lever and see if the light gets brighter. If so, you can skip this last step. If not, you'll just need to tweak your brake light adjust nut.

This adjust nut is found on the righthand side of the bike, just to the rear of the frame and between the black plastic guard and the footpeg bracket. Turn the nut slightly counterclockwise until the brake light goes off. Go back and forth between pressing the brake lever and watching the light come on, and playing with the adjust nut, until you're happy with the pressure needed to illuminate the brake light.

That's it! You're done! Here are a couple of pictures from either side of my bike, first with the bike on the sidestand, and then up on the centerstand, to show what it looks like completed.