Brake light wires

[Graxx]

I am adding some lights to the rear of my '81 XS1100H full dress and don't seem to get any power out of the tail light and turn signal wires in the rear. The work fine normally. What I'm wondering is are the black wires in the rear grounds and when the lights are turned on it makes the connection. Kinda like the door switch on a car to turn the inner light on when you open the door. And, if I'm correct is there any easy way to hook up more turn signal/brake lights to the wiring without ripping into the harness and rewiring it. Trying to add brake lights and turn signals in the trunk, and would like to wire them to the extra harness from the stock location for the brake/turn signals by the seat. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

[BigDick]

I'm far from an elecrical expert but I have unwrapped my harness and been from end to end on it. if you have too many lights drawing load on one circuit (one wire or stock light), for instance a splice off of your stock rear running lights or brake light, all the lights in that circuit will be dim and that would be just as bad as having just a few lights and not being seen. The best way if you don't want to open the stock harness would be to use either tape or zip ties to put the new wire against your stock harness. jmho

[fredintoon]

- - - are the black wires in the rear grounds and when the lights are turned on it makes the connection. Kinda like the door switch on a car to turn the inner light on when you open the door. And, if I'm correct is there any easy way to hook up more turn signal/brake lights to the wiring without ripping into the harness and rewiring it. Trying to add brake lights and turn signals in the trunk, and would like to wire them to the extra harness from the stock location for the brake/turn signals by the seat. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Graxx and welcome,
those black ground wires are not "switched" in any way, they are permanently connected.
Clymer's XS1100H wiring diagram shows the rear lamp's running light and ground wires having extra connectors that you could plug extra running lights into.
The extra stop & signal lights could be connected by piggybacking into the appropriate wires under the seat with a soldered joint & shrink sleeve.

[CatatonicBug]

Welcome to the forum! Nice to see another full dresser out there!

I have added the trunk option to mine, but I did not add turn signals to the trunk. I only connected the 4 lights in the trunk as running/brake lights. That was super simple, as the wires are right there running across the top of the fender, under the seat. I used an in-line connector that just crimps to the wire and created a removable pigtail with a molex connector on each end.

It would be possible to use the trunk lights as turn signals too, but you would have to add a controller of some sort to the circuit, similar to what is used on an automotive trailer for the same purpose. Also, the stock flasher for the signals will NOT work if you add any additional signal bulbs to the circuit. You would have to get a new flasher, and that would kill the auto-cancel feature for the signals.

[fredintoon]

- - - - the stock flasher for the signals will NOT work if you add any additional signal bulbs to the circuit. You would have to get a new flasher, and that would kill the auto-cancel feature for the signals.

Hi 'Bug,
not quite true.
My sidecar came with two nice looking amber signal/running light combos that used automotive 22W/8W bulbs.
With only a 44W load the stock flasher would just turn the signals on but not flash them.
So I added a third signal lamp. 66W load and the flasher worked like a bastard, pulsing ~50% faster.
Until it burned out.
Better to say the stock flasher will still work on increased load but kinda fast and not for long.
BTW, my son did the signal/brake combo thing on his sidecar rig using an $18 converter from NAPA.
Looks quite neat. All the lights on my rig make it look like a Christmas tree.

[thewright1]

Welcome to the forum! Nice to see another full dresser out there!

I have added the trunk option to mine, but I did not add turn signals to the trunk. I only connected the 4 lights in the trunk as running/brake lights. That was super simple, as the wires are right there running across the top of the fender, under the seat. I used an in-line connector that just crimps to the wire and created a removable pigtail with a molex connector on each end...

I have a license plate holder that I'm putting on my rear axle, and it has a break and running light above it (pictures below). I've been talking to some people in other forums, but it sounds like you've done exactly what I'm trying to do. Were you able to accomplish this without splicing into your harness?? What's an in-line connector, a removable pigtail and a molex connector?

[psycoreefer]

In this thread you can see the molex pigtail C-bug used for his trunk, and he has a link to the quick splice connectors he used to break into the factory wiring.

I went a different route when I added tail/brake function to my signals,

here you can see the connectors I picked up at the local electronics store..


Then I just made my "splice" between the new connectors so I could completely remove my mod if I ever had a problem. Here you can see my new plugs and splices connected to the old factory connectors, one side is in my hand, the other is just below.

[CatatonicBug]

What's an in-line connector, a removable pigtail and a molex connector?

As Psyco mentioned, post #17 in that thread gives pictures of the molex connectors, and how I used them to create a removable pigtail. The link in that post shows what in-lin connectors I used.

[thewright1]

Sorry guys, please bare with me while I figure this out. I see where the new wiring is spliced in between the old, but where does the new wiring go? Is that the pigtail that's going to your trunk? In my situation, there is only one wire going to the brake light, would I need one of those connections you have?

[psycoreefer]

Ok, I was mainly trying to show a method of splicing into the harness without cutting the factory wires, but....

My setup is more complicated because I was actually adding a Turn/Tail/Brake light module in-line to allow me to use my blinkers for all three, its also complicated by the fact that there is a brake light modulator (makes the light flash as if you were pumping the brakes even when the lever is held solid) in there as well. The wires you have labeled as "these wires?" are going to the above mentioned modules.

I got the new connector as a unit (two plus with 6" wire between them) so without my splices it would have just added 6" to the length of the stock harness. Then I cut it apart and added all the crazy spaghetti you see in the photo. In your case you'd need to identify the tail and brake light wires, and splice them to go to your new brake light.

An easier solution...

1.I assume your removing the stock tail/brake light?
2.Are you also removing the stock turn signals?

If 1 is true then just crimp a "bullet" connector on the end of your new brake light wire and connect it where you un-plugged the old brake light. Re-route wires as needed to make it clean/hidden.

If 2 is true you could use a plug like I've shown and remove the factory part of the harness from the junction back and build your own harness using the new plug as the starting point. One of the wires in that plug is "tail", another "brake" and the third is "ground".



You may want to verify that the light you purchased hooks up the way you think it does, ever one I've seen works as a tail/brake light, which means two wires. One for the "brake" and one for the "tail". There is no ground, its supposed to ground through the housing and mounting bolts.

[thewright1]

Thanks for the response. I'm actually keeping the stock brake light. Since the plate holders brake light is on the left, i'm worried that some people on my right side won't see it depending on what position they're in.

Now that I think about it though, since i'm keeping my original brake light, i can probably just use those two wires and put them in my previous license plate running wires were, that would probably work just fine. What do you guys think about that?

[TomRodgers]

JAT..... if you are planning on ADDING lights to anywhere....consider replacing the standard bulbs on the 'additional' lights with LED's. Less draw on the system, and the 'stock' bulbs will allow the flashers and canceling feature to work. the brake lights are not affected... i swapped out my stock "suitcase" tail light for a slick LED model awhile back and works just fine. i plan on adding additional brake lights by trying to force a special grab rail w/ brakelight assembly, but replace them with LED bulbs....this will allow me to have "two" brake assemblies...

[thewright1]

OK, I got it all set up last night. It was a fairly simple procedure. As mentioned above, I ad an empty running light from the old license plate holder that I removed from the rear fender. So there were no problems there.

Hooking up the brake light required a little more but still pretty simple. The connector on the break light has 6 wires, three on the top and three on the bottom (I think there were three on the bottom) anyway, I tested each one of the wires by simply touching my wire against each one of the prongs to see if I could get a response. The top yellow middle was my actual brake light cable.

I just pretty much cave manned it and spliced the wire, attached the license plate wire with the existing wire, heated up some shrink wrap around it, and electrical taped it for safe being, and that worked out for me. There are better ways to do this, but doing it this way for me accomplished exactly what I needed.