Installing After Market Directionals

[greco954]

I have been adding parts to my bike over the last month and wanted to post some pics and ideas for the newbies to the group who may want to venture down this path. Hopefully, this will keep someone from making a mistake that will cost lots of money and grief if you FU. One of the first items I put on were some Lockhart Phillips front directionals to replace the stock stuff.

However, if you buy aftermarket stuff, it never fits like OEM. So I had a choice of drilling fairings (bad bad) or come up with some other idea. What I wanted to do was use the existing design of the bike and modify the lights to it.

What I did was line up the lights where I wanted on the bike and then marked the base plate with a pencil from inside the bike out. This marked the plate where I was going to drill. I took the nut to the hardware store and picked up two bolts that matched the thread and that were about 1 1/2". This compensated for the bolt that was part of the stock turn signals. After Drilling, I had to grind a little with a Dremel to make sure the head of the screw was flush with the plate. Once that was done, I inserted the lights and tightened them and I was done.

One other bit of advice is that you spend the extra $4.95 ea. for the electrical wire converters that allow you to use the existing wiring on the bike. This saves a lot time and avoids cutting and crimpers. You can look at the pics posted. I hope this helps.

[greco954]

Before

[greco954]

step one

[greco954]

step two

[greco954]

finished

[greco954]

after

[greco954]

One last thing. I would recommend using some type of electrical tape or some other non abrasive betwen the base plate and fairing to keep it from scratching.

[bigred875]

greco954 nice job looks good. In my experience you could also cut the connector off of the OEM lights and splice them on to the after market lights. But then you can no long use them..but that might not be impotant to some Also, because the OEM lights are not as big as the new ones it is a good idea to replace the bulbs that come with them to LED's they will be much bright, use less power and last much longer.

[greco954]

Great idea on the LED's. I will look into them myself and probably change them on your recommendation.

[bemused]

greco954, those def. look sweet... and thanx for the step-by-step. planning to do something similar, it helps seeing your walk thru...


('course, where will I hang my disklock then? )

[bigred875]

Originally posted by greco954
Great idea on the LED's. I will look into them myself and probably change them on your recommendation.

I'm planning on doing the same ASAP..