LED Brake Light, Take 2

So I got my brake light back from Signal Dynamics a couple weeks ago. Their communication with me on this was pretty poor. They never called to say what the issue was or that it was coming back, it just arrived. The invoice said "Repaired, tested" and that was pretty much it. I have verified that it is in working condition again but I am interested to know what caused the failure. As soon as I can get a little garage time I am going to reinstall it. I am trying to be positive here but there is always that feeling in the back of my mind that it will fail again.

Rewiring The Wonder Shovel

     Idle hands do the Devil's work. Nick has had a little time to burn and to keep his head and hands busy, he's been trying to take the shovel where he wants it. In stripping things down, he realized there was a bunch of excess wiring, fuses and relays that needed gone. It was getting later in the afternoon so we moved from one shovel to the other.

   

    
 



After doing most of the reassembly on the top end, we proceeded on with several spools of colored wire and a couple pairs of snippers. I grabbed a simple wiring diagram from the excellent roadratroberts.com.If this site looks a bit dated by current standards, it is probably because it hasn't changed much since I first stumbled upon in in 2003. Anyhow, from B-movie reviews to killer old school photos to the rad drawn out photo wiring diagrams, this site is worth a look. The first time I saw wiring diagrams like this was here. 





   
      So we stripped off wires as we went and used the old pieces to judge the length we would need for the new pieces. One by one we made the new wires, added connectors as needed and put it all together. We tried to use some sort of consistency in the colors and Nick had done a good job of marking things when he did his initial tear-down. Cold beers in a hot garage on a Saturday night is a pretty great thing. It was getting late and somehow the idea of twisted yellow and blue wiring held together with green zip ties was too good to pass up. We're dumb and we laughed really hard about it.

     In the end, we hooked it up to the battery and an old switch I had lying around and held our breath. Low and behold, the headlight and tail light lit up and nothing caught on fire! The brake light even worked and everything. Nick was pretty excited as that hadn't been the case in quite some time. As the motor is still apart, we didn't get the satisfaction of hearing it run again but we made some solid advances in just half a day and barring other issues (fingers crossed) the bike should live again sooner than later.

The Wonder Shovel

Nick came by last week for lunch and to drop off some parts. Something about us getting together that always leads to the departure of sobriety...good seeing you buddy and thanks for the risers. Hope you enjoyed the returned parts...haha.

Changes

Went out to the garage Friday to take a look at the rear end of the bike. I'd been meaning to take the strut covers off for some time. The rear turn signals have been bothering me a lot lately. I had the idea to mount a single signal on top of the rear fender. Before I knew it I was unbolting and cutting wires. Time ran away from me and I ended up finishing up Saturday afternoon.

Ass end in pieces, tools and parts galore. All the wiring on newer HDs is quick disconnect. The connectors barely fit through the fender struts...pain in the ass.

There are some brackets and crap that I need to cut off this fender. I was a little reckless with it during this project knowing it needed to be trimmed and repainted. 

To get the wires through the top of the fender, I had to cut them. I soldered and shrink wrapped them together before realizing the relocation would require more length. I cut them, added length and did it all again.

My first thought was to make a channel in the existing hole to run the wiring through. For mounting reasons, this ended up not being an option. When in doubt, drill baby drill...

Finished product. The verdict is still out with me, I'm not 100% sold on it. I'm toying with the idea of just running the single light on a shortened stem on the tag side.

I went for a ride, it didn't suck. Even getting stopped at a train crossing was relaxing. It got cold later in the day and I regretted not riding in gloves. Then I remembered some people's riding seasons gets interrupted with blizzards and I didn't feel so cold anymore.

Mailbag: Steffan at Zombie Performance sent some schwag, awesome bars and fabrication. Check out his work here.