Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Removing rear turn signals

Now, this sound like a REAL dumb problem, but I need help with removing the rear turn signal light housings. With lens off, it appears as though they screw into the stems. But I can't get them to budge... is there a little tiny friggin' set screw in there? Or maybe the stem and housing are not supposed to come apart?

They do unscrew but i think they use some sort of lock tight Mine were very tight but they do come off
A bit of heat might help , put them out in the sun Opps you dont have sun do ya

I thought they unscrewed from the other end and leave holes in the bracket that the plate mounts to

I unscrewed the "cups" from the "stems" but I basically destroyed the finish on the stems with a vice grip (I tried to protect it with tape). I was replacing them anyway.

If you destroy the stems you can use lamp rod and stainless spacer for stems available at a hardware store. I made stainless stems for Wendy's turn signals on my lather out of stainless bolts I turned and drilled.

I bought hollow bolts and chrome spacers from J&P Cycles (or maybe Drag Specialties or Custom Chrome--can't remember it was '03).

Forgot about those John, but I have seen them listed recently so there's another option.

Thanks guys... I'll just keep working at it.

Yup, you guys were right... just work at it and it comes off.

However, does anyone know what the thread size is?

a bit of heat helps loosen the "locktite" Triumph used.

I know it's more money than other options but I saw on one of the sites, and of course can't remember now which one, they had short stems for inserting into the rear fender mounts to move the rear signals. Anybody used those. Looks like an easy application. and hey mtnman..I took my signals off last year a freaked because I couldn't get the stems off the cups and bailed out and put it all back together. So thanks for starting the post. Gave me confidence to tear into it again.

Yer welcome Brett! But I'm still wondering, does any know the size of thread on the cup end of the stem?

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But I'm still wondering, does any know the size of thread on the cup end of the stem?

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I'm also wondering. Ian, you mentioned lamp rod. Will that tread in and then you can use a spacer to cover it? I'd like to bring my turn signals in closer.

Hi you all. A situation of frustration occurred that relates to this.

I didn't like the bikes profile w stock turn signals and replaced the front ones w Kuryakin mirrors w LED turn signals. Easy 60 min job and it looks great. Next issue was to replace the rear ones with LED minis. Took even shorter time (and yes, a bit of heat from a paint stripper or butane torch did the trick for the nuts in the rear light assembly). I put the minis on the fender struts in the last holes by simply unscrew the bolts and (pleasant surprise) it was the same size and threads as the minis. Hence I could use the old strut bolts to plug the holes for the old indicators in the rear light assembly. After changing the indicator relay to hi resistance LED one (from Bosch) it all workt like a charm and me, I was smiling... For about a week. Then the problems started. The indicators lived a life of their own. Randomly the indicators started to flash too fast, not flash at all or just work normal. I changed relay, rear minis, rewired, resoldering connections all in vain.

After a couple of months of frustration and dodging police cruisers (bad indecators = fines in Sweden) a friends girlfriend, who's an electrical engineer, said that it's a ground issue, possibly involving the frame.
As it turned out the chrome on the minis and the fender struts had worn off where they were joined which caused an electrical short of some sort.
Solution = a thin rubber washer to isolate the indicators from the chassie.

Hope this can help others out there. It's a ****** when there's a troll in the machine (or the electrical system)

Thanks for that bit of information, David and welcome to the forums.