Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech hard 2 see turn indicator fix

i posted this at RAT but it's even more pertinant here since we're all cruiser owners.....

I found a way to make the turn signal indicator easy to see even in sunlight, so i thought i'd share. The reason it's hard to see isn't because the bulb isn't bright enough...it IS. Problem is that it's way down below the green lense. The fix was to put it right up against it. So you ask won't that melt the lense? So far no, and i wouldn't think so since it's an intermittant light. I can't imagine that. But you can pass on the fix and wait and see if i come back with a "my lense melted" post. :-D I seriously doubt you'll se that tho.

So heres the deal. To do this it's best to remove the chrome panel, or Nacelle as i think it's called. The bulb sits in a long rubber sleeve. At the bottom of the sleeve are 2 contacts the bulb pushes into. They are each stuck in thier own little hole to keep them in place. Remove rubber sleeve from the nacellethen remove the bulb. Now push the wires from the base of the rubber sleeve up into the sleeve. They will come out of thier "pockets" at the bottom. Push them up till they stick out the top of the sleeve. By the way, you'll see tyhe wires go thru not only 2 holes in the bottom of the sleeve but before that thru 2 other holes in a rubber part thats there to sorta keep them in place, so you'll have to pull some slack in the wires thru that, then push them up into the rubber sleeve and out the top. Sounds confusing maybe, but you'll see what i'm saying when you get there and it's real simple once you see it.

So now you have the wires sticking out the top of the sleeve and each wire has a sorta pinch connector on it that the bulb slides into for the connection. Basically you will insert the connectors onto the bulb and pull the wires back thru the bottom till the bulb is at the right height....more on that in a minute. But first, you're not going to just connect the bulb to the connectors because they would move around and come off or short together. So what i did was to slide some approximatly 1/8" heat shrink tubing over each wire before connecting the bulb. The heat shrink should be only as long as needed to cover the metal contacts. Shrink them once in place, then take another piece of larger HS big enough to go over the bulb and just long enough to cover the base of the bulb with the connectors. (the flat area with the contacts) This piece will hold them in place on the bulb. Note that if it is too long you'll have to trim some off or the bilb won't be able to go deep inough into the sleeve to allow the green lense to fit on.

So once both contacts are on the bulb and heat shrinked, and the base of the bulb is heat shrinked you can now pull the wires back down while pushing the bulb in as you do. (if you just pull the wire w/o helping the bulb back down by pushing it, you may pull a contact loose even when heat shrinked) Once it looks like the bulb is far enough into the sleeve so that the lense will fit on, try fitting it. If it won't, pull the bulb a bit further down and try again till you get to where the lense will fit on with the bulb top right up against it. If it won't go down far enough to allow the lense to fit, that means the big piece of heat shrink that covers the bulb base is too long and you'll have to trim it till it will allow the bulb to drop down further in the sleeve. Once the lense will fit on with the bulb up as high as it can go while allowing the lense to fit, reinsall the sleeve back into the nacelle and pup the lense on.

Also note that while i used heat shring you could use tape instead i suppose. But HS is better because tape is more trouble and not as stable. Also note that while this sounds involved it's only does because i'm giving you an extremely detailed explanation. But in short all it comes down to is this......

the contacts at the bottom of the sleeve have to come up high enough so the top of the bulb is against the lense, and that the contacts need to be covered to prevent shorting and the base of the bulb taped or heat shrinked to keep the contacts in place on the bulb.

It was real nice easily seeing that thing flash in broad daylight for the first time !! No more looking at my front signals to see if they're on. This problem was really getting on my last nerve.

By the way, i should mention that before you do this, realize that if the bulb goes out eventually you'll have to go thru this process again to fit a new one. But considering these bulbs are used in an intermittant context i imagine they'd last a long long time. Still i figured i better mention this. But it's really only a 10 minute job, so whats 10 minutes every few years at most to be able to always see your turn indicator !?

IKJ,
Thanks for this. I wonder if the other bulbs would benefit from the same treatment? I'll check it out when I check this out. On my 03 TA, none of the indicator bulbs are easily seen in daylight....

The other option you have for this is to get a couple of ultrabright green LEDs to replace the bulb and put them up close to the lens. Should produce aat least as much light and won't burn out - however it does mean you have to rewire it a little to add an earth wire and a couple of diodes.

Matt

Grump.......sure, why not. I personally don't have a problem seeing the others because they are not intermittant and that seems to make them much easier to see. (odd,you'd think it might be the opposite) But you could do that. My only concern is whether they'd melt the lenses being constantly on unlike the turn indicator. Can't hurt to try unless the lenses are rediculous in cost.......Hmmm come to think of it, knowing triumph they just might be ! $20 each wouldn't suprise me in the least after being quoted $43 for a triumph pre cut steering lock key !

Sandman......thats what i was going to do at first, but once i pulled the sleeve and the bulb i realized it wasn't the bulb's fault. So instead of taking a chance on the only high output LED i'd found in my search at $5 each (!!!) i just set the bulb higher. There is a rating on the LED package that refers to light output, and i had no idea what rating i'd need. But at RS the one with the highest rating was $5 each and i wasn't about to spend 5 or 10 bucks and be unsure it would do the trick when i could simply prop the bulb up a bit. So me go easy/sure way...

If you notice, I tried to do something about it. I put bright LEDS up high in this box I got from radio shack. Its still not good enough because they are still too low from normal field of view when riding.

I am not happy with this so I think I am gonna draw wires from under the console and place them above on top of the speedo. This time Im going to include the oil lamp as well.

I was thinking of putting an LED in my speedo. Haven't taken it apart to see if it would work, but in my opinion, that's where it belongs. Older Triumphs had all those lights in headlight shell, but I don't want to do that.