Tail Light Assembly Pt. 2

Buttoned everything up...

Now to the turn signals. As with the front signals, these were Japanese aftermarket units bougjht in the mid-late 70s, probably after some mishap that broke one or more of the rather fragile Lucas units. The Japanese lights were still in decernt shape, and had been on the bike nearly all of its life, so I decided to keep them. One thing I didn't like, though, was the "universal" mounting brackets. They looked kludgy, and routed the wire for the light out in the open. Also, they didn't have real return wires either. That little red pigtail was where the return wire from the harness connected to the housing. I decided to fix both of these problems while I was at it.  

I made a couple of "stalks" just like the ones on the front. The stalks would screw into the tail light housing with its 7/16-20 thread on one end, and accept the turn signal's fitting with its M10 x 1.25 metric thread. The stalks are drilled through ao the wires are not exposed. The piece on the right hadn't been zinc plated yet.

The signal lamps are very simple, and it was easy to add the return wire to the existing screw that held the socket in the shell. I swapped out the fake bullet terminals for real ones. Also spruced up the lenses just like for the tail light.

So here are all the pieces to mount the signals--all original except for the new stalks, but all freshly zinc plated.

  Putting it all together...

The new return wires will require a new 4-way connector inside the housing.

Lastly, there are little rubber strips on the bottom edge of the tail light housing where it rests on the rear fender. Thes protect the fender paint, but don't appear to be in my parts book. I found some linear grommet material that is almost an exact replacement, so replaced the old crumbling ones.