Sometimes you just want more

There are times you want more light to the rear of the bike, you pull over to the side of the road in a thunderstorm, at night, or as a road guard you want people coming up behind you to see you. Now Harley has this covered, they are called 4-way flashers. For some reason the Japanese have determined that you just don't need them. There are companies out there that make kits that you can wire in so that your turn signals become 4-ways, but these do not work on all bikes, in fact sometimes they cause more heart-ache than anything else. Myself I took and alternative route, I mounted a set of additional lights on their own circuit. The problem I had is that a Yamaha has a severe angle to the fender where they mount the stock turn signals, and a secondary stock system is out of the question because Yamaha utilizes a set of school groung momkee bars with a licence plate bracket permanently attached to it. I could have gone out and bought two aftermarket turn signal lamps, but that would have meant additional wiring and more fender drilling than I wanted. So I went where every red blooded American goes when they need something...EBAY.

I looked at bikes in the club and found that the easiest would be a Kawasaki 1500/1600 unit. So $30.00 off E-BAY and I had it. I drilled three holes straight down through the fender (two for the lamp bracket and one for the wires). Using a pre-made unit meant not a lot of wire running, just stuff the Kawasaki factory wires through, ground one and a single power wire to a switch up front. I did have to rotate the signals on the bracket a few degrees and redrill the mount holes but that was fairly quick. Wa-La, rear lights, a flasher and a switch...done. And they make LED replacement clusters for the 1157 socket.

 

Please ignore the dirt

 

The switch is located under my left leg.

(Yes...I know...it's dirty...thats because I ride it, and I am lazy if you haven't caught that from earlier posts)

Why do I mention this now, because I rode the bike this afternoon, came home, shut it down and went inside. Three hours later I came out jumped on the bike and click,click,click.

It would appear I hit the switch with my leg when I got off it earlier and it had been sitting in my yard, protecting it's rear for three hours...

Luckily, I live on a hill.

 

 
klay