Trafficators (Turn Signals)

[Tiny Tim]

With the "new" lights installed, bypassing the flasher unit by "shorting" from the power terminal to the light  terminal lights both the front and rear light in a continuous glow. 

This proves that the lights are not the problem. I suspect that the wattage of the new fron lights is not the same as the old lights. A variable flasher unit would solve your problems.

Can you confirm that the new bulbs are the same wattage as the old ones?

[Arizoni]

Can you confirm that the new bulbs are the same wattage as the old ones?
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The original bulbs in the original lights were 10 watt.
The bulbs in the new lights were 8 watt.

After I first installed the new lights and found that they didn't work, the first thing I did was to replace the 8 watt bulbs with the 10 watt bulbs out of the old original lights.
This made no difference.  The old 10 watt bulbs in the new light housings still didn't  turn on.  Both the 8 and 10 watt bulbs have the same base.

After finding that the lights wouldn't work, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I replaced the new light housings with the old housings (but these housings now had the 8 watt bulbs installed rather than the original 10 watt bulbs).
  The old housings with the new 8 watt bulbs work fine.

This is what leads me to believe there must be some sort of circuitry in the original lights lamp base that is recognized by the solid state flasher unit.

[Arizoni]

OK !!!

I've solved the problem with the non-working aftermarket turn signals.

As I had mentioned above, each of the factory front turn signals are connected with two wires.  One black and one black with a stripe.

The new aftermarket turn signals have one wire coming out of the threaded stud and it is connected to the center terminal of the light bulb.  The case of  these lights is the ground, and I made a washer with a wire connected to it to assure that the new lights ground would be hooked up to the harness wires.

The mistake I made was to assume that the wiring harness BLACK wire was the ground wire and the striped wire was the power supply.  WRONG!
At least on my G5, it is not.

 I disconnected the front factory light on the left side and with my Volt/Ohm meter in hand, I turned on the ignition and the left turn signal.
The striped wire showed nothing but the BLACK  wire was receiving a pulsing current when tested with the meters other probe touching my engine.

Connecting the black wire to the wire coming out of the new lights threaded stud and touching the striped wire to the new lights case the light blinked merrily.

Without getting into any guessing about why, because your bikes wiring might be different than mine, my suggestion to anyone installing these new replacement lights is to turn on your ignition and set the turn signal button so it supplies power to that side of the bikes turn signal.

Then, holding the case of the light against a ground, first touch the harnesses black wire to the new lights wire.  If the light starts blinking, you will know you've found the power supply so you will know how to hook up the light.

Oh, the reason I got back into this was I was at the local weekly car show and a guy was admiring my RE.  He then said, "Too bad they put Honda turn signals on it.  They don't look right."

THAT WAS THE DEATH KNELL FOR THE OLD LIGHTS!

[TCP]

Arizoni,

Will you post a pic of the new lights installed?

Caseman

[Arizoni]

I posted it in the What did you do to your UCE today but it wouldn't hurt to put the picture here too (I hope).

[TCP]

Definitely looks more appropriate.

I saw these when I was looking at the other ones.

I bet these would look really sweet on the C5

Caseman

[singhg5]

OK !!!

I've solved the problem with the non-working aftermarket turn signals.

The mistake I made was to assume that the wiring harness BLACK wire was the ground wire and the striped wire was the power supply.  WRONG!
At least on my G5, it is not.

Connecting the black wire to the wire coming out of the new lights threaded stud and touching the striped wire to the new lights case the light blinked merrily.

Jim:

I am glad to hear that you have solved this 'mysterious' problem - another one of Enfieldish quirks - must feel soooo gooood   !  Good picture too.

[TWinOKC]

Jim,

The new traffickers look much better than the old ones.  I got the same ones from Enfield Gear but was a little confused about how to wire them.  Maybe now I will  "go for it".  Did you use the existing L brackets to mount them?  Have you changed the rear traffickers?

Thanks for the detailed write up and picture.

Terry    

[Arizoni]

Yes and No.

Yes, I just used the existing front brackets and bolted the new lights in place.
That's why they are tucked in so close to the front forks.

I haven't done the rear yet. 
I'm studying it.

Adding to the rear lights problem is I want to keep the chrome luggage rack I have.
That large flat plate the existing tail light and license plate are attached to is so large that it would cover up the new lights if I just attached them directly to the sides of the support like the existing lights do.

The hard rubber extensions that the factory lights have has a hollow metal tube running thru it.
The outer end is threaded.  The nut that holds the light in place screws onto this thread.
The inner end of the hollow tube also has a hex nut which holds the chrome light shell in place and it looks like a simple twist of a box wrench would loosen it.  That would leave the hard rubber extension with essentially a male thread at each end.
Because the new lights come with a male thread I guess I could make a simple sheet metal plate with two holes in it and screw the plate to the rubber extension and the light to the plate but that would leave two large exposed hex nuts hanging out there in the wind and IMO it would look pretty crummy.

My other thought is to make a Z shaped sheet metal bracket.
One leg would be screwed to the side of the housing with two sheet metal screws and the new lights male thread would be attached thru the outer end of the Z.

I'm not happy with this second idea but it would work.  I guess I'll keep on thinking for a while.

[Arizoni]

I replaced the DOT turn signals on the rear of my G5 with the small chrome plated metal style like the ones I installed on the front.

I was going to mount them on angle iron brackets but while talking to partsman, he informed me the turn signal brackets that RE uses to mount the front signals are available for less than I would have to pay for the angle iron so I went with these.

It turns out the brackets they sent are bent at rather odd angles but a quick trip to my bench vise and a few whacks with a hammer and they became nice U shaped brackets (with the bottom of the U flat).

Removing the large plate that holds the license plate I found the interior quite roomy so it was easy to disconnect the electrical connectors after marking a piece of masking tape R for right and L for left and taping it to each branch of the wires.

Because of the luggage rack, I couldn't use the holes that the old turn signals used but after moving one of them around I found a nice new home for it, slightly lower than it would have been.
I decided to use a standard 1/4-20 bolt, nut and washer to bolt the slotted end to the rear housing so after figuring out where the hole should be I drilled the mounting holes with a 9/32 inch drill bit.

Because there are several painted surfaces between the new lights and the frame of the bike I soldered a wire to each of the two 5/16" washers to mount the lights.  This gives me the one wire from the light for power and one wire to ground the lights housing.

I taped the two wires from each light together with electrical tape (just like the Indians do on the main wiring harness)  .

I bought two 1/2" rubber grommets so I could route the signals wires thru the old hole in the rear housing without fearing that the sharp edges would cut thru the wires.  These grommets didn't fit real tightly so I bonded them in place using some Silicone rubber RTV.

Getting to the wiring, the old lights were connected with a two wire harness connector.  I didn't want to get into recreating the wiring interface so I just cut off a length of the wires on the old lights so I could re-use their ends.

Speaking of the old wires, the wiring diagram says the striped wire is the power and the black wire is the ground.
I found that the striped wire on the wiring harness up to the plastic connector was indeed the power supply just like the diagram said it should be.  The wires from the light however had the solid black wire connecting to the wirings striped power wire and the striped wire from the light was connected to the harness's black ground wire.  I think this is what screwed me up when I was working with the front lights.  They also reversed their wire color up to the plug in.

Anyway, before hooking up the wires I plugged the short cut off wire from the old light into the harness, turned on the ignition key and the turn signal.
Using a volt/ohm meter sure enough, the short solid black wire was the power supply so I attached it to the new lights power supply wire.
I then attached the wire from the washer to the striped wire and the light started blinking merrily.
This connection I secured with an insulated wire nut.  The kind that screws onto the twisted wires ends.

Although the old tail light bulb was working fine I figured that while I was in there I might as well replace the tail light/stop light bulb with a new Sylvania I had bought.

After buttoning things up I think the appearance looks much better and no longer will I have to hear, "How come did they put Honda turn signals on your Royal Enfield?"

[RavenTooth]

I just added some eBay bullet style turn signals to the rear of my 2012 Enfield and wanted to share how i did it. I have a classic with the double seat.

I bought the front turn signal brackets for like under $10 shipped. Then, intent on using the license plate screw hole to hold the bracket, I drilled a second mounting hole so the bracket would line up flush with the edge of the black license plate holder box thing. I then had to cut the end of the bracket a bit shorter so I could the license plate holder backplate back onto the bike. I just ran the wires through the same hole. They're visible, but they look OK, i mean, there are wirings hanging on other parts of the bike.

Wiring was easy since I bought turn signals with two wires. I also chose black ones instead of chrome so they would disappear more with the bike.  Bear in mind, I had to wire the backwards to what I did on the front. The solid black wire is ground and the striped wire is positive. If you do it the other way around, it wont work when you put the cover back on and you'll get sparking at the screws.

If you can handle buying $10 work of parts, driller two holes and cutting off the ends of two brackets, I think this is the easiest and most OEM looking way to add smaller rear turn signals to your bike. I may consider driller new holes for the wires directly across from the turn signals. Then I could plug the old holes with a hole plug, and it may look cleaner.

I'll try to post pics.

[RavenTooth]

Here you can see what the unmodified bracket would look like on the right, and the new, shorter, flush mounted bracket on the left. When it's longer it needs to be spaced out and it's really hard to tighten it down properly. The modified bracket works really well and is solid.



Here's the bracket on the bike. You can see how easy it will be to add the new turn signals now.