Little rear LED tweak

[bosnjo]

I've done this some time ago. When I got my Glee I knew I had to do something about that little "red brick" Suzuki installed to illuminate licence plate.
From eBay, ordered from China, and here it is. It illuminates the licence plate (white)and acts as stop light (red). Beside hating OEM "brick" I also wanted some aditional LED stop light without making my Glee look like a Christmas Tree.
This little LED light is supposed to be, beside stop and licence plate light, constant rear light. I have never liked the idea of having two rear lights, one bellow the other. What hapened was that on installation I accidentaly swapped polarity and the module controling rear light burnt out. I thought I burnt out the whole unit but at the end only rear light module was burnt. Stop and licence plate light were OK. That was great luck for me, one mistake made the light the way I wanted it:



Now, I looked and looked all over eBay hoping somebody made rear light cluster in white, but no luck. After changing indicators to white and "red brick" to white, I'd love to have rear light cluster in white as well. My Givi top box has white reflectors as well. Well, maybe someday somebody will make aftermarket cluster in white.

[Juntley]

Have you got a link to that light - been looking for something like this for a while but the only ones I found were too big.

Jeff

[bosnjo]

Yes, it was damn difficult to find right size as they were all bigger:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hot-LED-Black-Motorbike-Tail-Brake-Indicator-Number-Plate-Rear-Light-cycle-WST-/271265833568?pt=UK_SportGoods_CyclAcces_RL&var=&hash=item3f28b42260
Just choose type 2 !!
To install it, unbolt the "brick" from the bike, drill two little holes for new light bolts, cut the wires from old bulb, solder two wires to new light and the run one positive lead for stop from under the seat behind the stop light. I soldered all wires and used heat shrink to insulate them. Also, I opened new light and run thin film of silicon between the transparent and black part of new light, just to make sure it stays waterproof.
Ah, and the light comes with metal base for licence plate that you can just simply unbolt.
New holes on rear mudguard will be invisible if you ever decide to put the "brick" back.
If I remeber well, I used 9V battery to find out which wire was what before installing it. Trying it with 9V will not light up all LED's but it doesn't mean it's broken (I thought it was faulty but at the end, after connecting 12V, it was all good).

[Juvecu]

Was looking for a replacement myself as mine broke when I stripped the bike. This is worth a punt

[bosnjo]

Was looking for a replacement myself as mine broke when I stripped the bike. This is worth a punt

Great !!
I like mine so much that I kept the OEM one to put it on when some day bike goes fore sale. For the price it costs, even thinking of getting one more just as a backup.

[Mitch]

Great idea.

I have an Oxford eyeshot which looks very similar. Have you not lost your rear reflector?. How does the law stand?. I know you can place a strip of Red reflective tape on the rear licence plate, which will probably get round that issue.

[Gassoon]

Looks very good!  Mitch is right though, you need a red reflector on the back for the MOT (stick one on the topbox?) in the UK. Though, weirdly, the plate doesn't need to have a specific illumination afaik

[tallpaul]

stick one on the topbox?

It's this feasible, given the top box may be removed and the bike still used?  No evidence or anything, just thinking out loud.

[bosnjo]

Great idea.

I have an Oxford eyeshot which looks very similar. Have you not lost your rear reflector?. How does the law stand?. I know you can place a strip of Red reflective tape on the rear licence plate, which will probably get round that issue.

Well yes, the law here is the same as there, you need to have red rear reflector. I even have reflective thick red tape I can cut and make reflector but still haven't done it.
I guess I'm waiting to get a ticket first.
But thanks for calling my attention, now I feel more urged to put it on.

[bosnjo]

And about licence plates, law here in Portugal has changed few years back and licence plate has to have minimum size (quite big as you can see in my photo), it has to be acrylic (so you can´t bend it to avoid police photo) and it has to be reflective, approved.
Few years back I was going for a long trip to eastern Europe and had about 10 hours of waiting in Zagreb (Croatia) airport. I went out of the airport building to take a walk and found quite a big group of parked motorcycles. My God, you should see the size of their licence plates. I've never seen such a plates in my life. They are huge and completely ruin the look of any motorcycle. I don't know if they're still like that (Croatia is now full member of EU) but I can´t complaint about size of my plate anymore.

[Juvecu]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/180956991092

You just need a little stick on reflector like that usually. A single one will do, but 2 makes it look more balanced, I guess.

[bosnjo]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/180956991092

You just need a little stick on reflector like that usually. A single one will do, but 2 makes it look more balanced, I guess.

Well yes, but I'm thinking about something more discreet. There goes my dream of removing everyhing red from the rear of the bike. I have white indicators now on my Glee, white licence plate light, the licence plate itself is white, topbox reflectors are white... I was thinking of hiding red reflector bellow my topbox and put it just on the OEM rear rack. That way it'd be invisible during a day... But all of that now goes down the toilet as I can't seem to find white aftermarket tail light to replace OEM one, LED or not...
 

[mjc506]

You could use some white paint?  

[bosnjo]

You could use some white paint?  

Bleach is probably easier.