AJ 1100 - Saddle bag lights n blinkers

[deo]

Hey all,
I just had my saddlebags painted to match the rest of my XJ 1100. Seems my SWMBO got tired of them setting in the garage and helped me decide to put them on the bike. I've never had them on the bike and will be mounting my blinkers on them. I also want to put some sort of side lights on the bags.

I've read through most of the threads on lights but am not an electrician so the amps and stuff doesn't make a lot of sense. Are there certain things that I need to do, like should I ground the wires for the blinkers to another part of the bike? I will be making the existing wires longer but don't know if the metal holders serve as the ground and whether or not they need an additional ground when I put them in the fiberglass bags. I am taking the existing holders off.

Any help or pictures of existing lighting arrangements would be very appreciated. I would love to see if there is someone that has done something unusual with the lights on the back end of their XS.

Thanks for your input.

dave

[deo]

opps

opps I meant XJ 1100 my fingers didn't work so well.

[Mnkee]

I moved mine (rear turn signals) back when I added the leather bags. The metal frame does carry the ground but it (the light) also has a terminal end ground wire that bolts on over it.
I extended the wires and moved both my lights with no problem.
Before adding any extra lights, check your main fuse panel. I learned the hard way that the fuse holders are junk and probably need to be replaced.

[deo]

I am going to take the bar off completely so I will need to run a ground then, right? With no contact except the fiberglass I think I will ground it to the the bag frame.

I have a new fuse box and new flasher as well, thanks to TC.
He put on the flasher for me. Works great, just no automatice turn off.


deo

[randy]

Deo,

Do yourself a favor now and run a seperate ground wire to the nearest ground lead in the wiring harness. Eventually, frame grounds develop corrosion problems and/or vibration related intermittent operation.

Will save you a troubleshooting headache later.

HTH

Randy.

[randy]

P.S. I've done away with all frame grounds on Swamp Thing and run them direct.

Randy

[deo]

Good thought! I will look the wiring system over and identify one of the leads. I suppose that I would have to do a coupler or something like that to make it work properly. That I can do.

thanks