Posted by INTRUDN (Did Y'all miss me?) on August 01, 2001 at 18:15:53:
Yes, I'm still around. The rumors of my demise have been grossly exaggerated...LOL Some folks recently have emailed me and asked for the low-down on the factory tail/brake lightectomy. Well, here it is for everybody and anybody that might be thinking of doing this, or not...LOL It's really a pretty simple job, just takes a little time. The wiring is pretty straight forward, and the location of the new light is simple at best. Here is what I did:
I removed the tag light from the license plate bracket and mounted the new brake/tail light in it's place. Just tossed the tag light onto the shelf because the cateye light I put in had a clear lens on it to light up the tag. To mount the cateye light where the tag light was, I needed a piece of sheet metal to serve as a backplate/spacer. Any old piece of thin, sturdy metal will do because it will be out of sight anyway. Drill three holes in the sheet metal, two for the mounting bolts, and one for the wires. Insert the new light into the holes on the tag bracket and use the piece of metal like a gigantic washer/spacer to hold the light on the bracket.
Next is the wiring. Pretty straight forward. The black wire with the white stripe is the ground, which is not needed because the cateye light I used is a "self-grounding" light, which means that is serves as it's own ground. You can tell if your new brake/taillight is self grounding by looking at the wires on it. If it only has two wires coming out of it, it is self grounding. One wire for the brake function, one wire for the running light function. On the Suzuki line, the brown wire (with no stripes) is the tail light wire, and the white wire with the black stripe is the brake light wire. Just wrap some electrical tape around the end of the ground wire and hide it up in there somewhere.
Now, to fill/cover up the space that was left after removing the factory brake/tail light, I went by the local truck-stop and picked up a small "bullet" light that I hooked to the old tag light wires (you can just wrap them with electrical tape if you aren't going to use them). Many auto parts stores carry them as well, but the truck-stop is on my way home. I put it in the center hole, and mounted a roll style toolbag behind it, between the supports for the sissybar. Now, I used the toolbag because I already had it. It would be just as easy to use a "fender chap" if you are still using the passenger seat, which Stef had me remove long ago, to cover up those holes. I just used what I already had on hand (except for the bullet light). We had mounted a fender chap where the passenger seat was, and Stef didn't want a longer one than she already had, so we improvised!
I can send a .Zip file to anyone that wants to see the pictures since my old homestead.com website is on it's way to never-never land. I hope to have my NEW website up and running in a few weeks. I have been searching long and hard to find a good replacement host, and I think I am going with geocities.com, which is powered by yahoo.com, and it's FREE! Whoo-hoo! Yes, I am still around, and if anybody wants to pick a fight, like in the old days ;^) just let me know! Looks like we could use some excitement around here! LOL