Trunk Running Lights

[Guest rwalker]

I have a '92 VR. Has anyone encountered problems with the trunk running lights blowing bulbs or the bulb sockets not making connection with the bulbs. All the bulbs in mine were working, when suddenly, I had one working on the righthand side. Once I figured-out how to remove the &^%$ thing (What a stupid design!), I found two bulbs had turned black. I kept swapping the remaining two around until they worked in the outer sockets; however, I could not get either one to work in the center two sockets. Has anyone encountered this or a similar problem? If so, what is a good fix for it?

 

Thanks,

Randy

[Steve S]

Hey Randy.

The best fix for a problem like that is a brand new, 08 second gen...

[Guest rwalker]

Are you buying? While I agree, that is way beyond my meager budget.

 

[gunboat]

hi randy

might pm jb (lonestarmedic) he has worked on this with his i'st gen.

 

don c.

[lonestarmedic]

Randy - follow this link to see what I did to my trunk. The SMD lights are off of e-bay

from a place named Joe Florida. Nice guy. It is a labor intensive project but the end

result is excellent. Gunboat and Ponch say that the rear only washes out at broad

daylight high noon. The turn signals show up well even then. Make sure and use red

behind red and yellow behind yellow. I have mine set with running, turn, and brake

lights. I think I can buy the LED's bulk fairly cheap, Otherwise you end up with a few

leftover strip pieces. Been thinking about mounting those in the side reflectors on

the side bags.

 

http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?t=21986

 

JB

[mbrood]

I opened mine when I first got ready to put it on... good thing too... I found the wire crrimps were junk (at best) and one was just laying there...

 

http://bergall.org/temp/venture/bigbike5.jpg

 

You want to clean up and protect any wire junctions and it helps to secure the wires so they don't get bounced around. Since they use hot glue to mount the lenses, it IS a pain to heat SLOWLY and work the lenses off.

 

I bought side illuminating LEDs from superbrightleds.com CHEAP source and quality products... you want to use the RED wedge bulbs under the red lens and AMBER under the amber lens. These are POLARIZED so you REALLY want to fire them up before you replace the lenses... I also put a small dab of RTV on each bulb and holder to keep them tight. The old bulbs burn out... the LEDs are almost infinite life... try it.

 

Make sure you peal the old glue and apply new glue when you reinstall the lenses... they can come off down the road and aren't available, I believe.

[Guest rwalker]

I appreciate your responses and suggestions. Looks like another project on the list.

Has anyone explained why Yamaha chose such a utterly stupid design for that light bar? Why use glue? Incandescent bulbs do not last forever! Somebody had a brain fart when they decided to use that design!

 

Randy

[mbrood]

They aren't by Yamaha... purely secondary market, originally made by bigbikeparts.

 

Original equipment is a simple wrap-around reflector.

[Guest rwalker]

It would worry me if a bike manufacturer installed something like that as OEM.