After owning my bike for a number of years I finally went ahead and decided to change out the rear fender and put in a turn signal integrator. As long as I was changing the lights out on my bike I also went ahead and changed out the front turn signals to some “flush” Mounts as well. I order my rear turn signal integrator from CustomLed since they seemed to have a pretty decent price on the lights. I also made sure to get a new relay since I was removing all bulbs from turn signals and was going all leds.
The instructions from CustomLed were of a vary high quality so following them was a breeze. Of course the actual implantation of those instructions is something else entirely.
Stock Rear Fender
Stock Rear Side View
Front Stock View
Stock Front Side View
As you can see in the above stock shots of what my bike looked like the rear has a log to be desired. So it was time to get started.
Tail Body Section
Rear Tail Removed
Rear Tail Removed Side
Now that I had the rear tail all dismantled it was time to start work on the rear lights. One thing I found out that I didn’t know until I started work on this project is that the rear brake lights is a sealed unit. So in order to remove the old lights I had to break out the dremel and cut around the casing and crack the plastic to get at the lights. In order to seal it back up I used some super glue to hold the plastic and then a bead of hot glue around the cut to seal it up again and hopefully make it water proof once again.
Rear Brake Lights Taken Apart
Rear Brake Lights Soldered
Rear Brake Lights Reassembled
Now with the rear tail lights all done it was time to work on the front turn signals. Unfortunately these new turn signals was of the generic variety and not a set designed for my body style. I had to cut the inside of the fender in order to even bolt the new turn signals on. And even to do that I made some plastic cut outs for the bolts to attach to otherwise there was no place to actually secure the turn signals. The other downside to these new turn signals was that they are designed to mounted on a flat surface. Were I put them on the front fairing is curved so when attaching the cover they cracked around the screw holes so I had to back off on the screws some so I wouldn’t completely break them.
Side Fairing Removed
Front Side Fairing and Tire Removed
Removing Bulbs
Turn Signals Soldered
New Led Turn Signals Mounted
Fairing Cut to Allow New Turn Signals
Front Turn Signal Mounting Bracket
One of the changes I made from the instructions is that I soldered my connections when possible instead of using the supplied wire connectors. I felt that it would be a cleaner installation plus I like soldering things.
At the request of a friend who was helping me work on the bike I also took the time to replace the fuel filter.
Gas Tank Removed
Top Shot With Gas Tank Removed
And here it is with everything put all back together.
New Rear Leds Installed
Front Turn Signals Installed
Rear Fender Removed
Sadly no action shots yet and yes I know I need to redo the exhaust since that is still the stock can on there. I currently have the license plate mounted by using some fish eye bolts threaded through the old fender holes with bolts on the inside and then zip ties to secure the plate to the bolts. Not the most elegant solution but it only cost a couple of bucks to do. I am thinking about having a custom bracket made up and since the license plate light removes from the main rear fender I will be able to reuse that part on the new holder.
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