R1 Tail

 

When I bought my R1 way back in early 2012 it came equipped with a fender eliminator and integrated stop/indicator lights. This seemed to work okay for a couple of years but I think I got water in there on a wet ride with Steve and his mates when they came up on THIS ride.

Cue them not working properly - ever again really. I pushed my luck with getting pinged as I don't ride the bike that much but after looking at Will riding it on THIS ride at Xmas, I decided I had better do something about it.

Brake light(s).

Left indicator (ok, you get the idea how shit they were)

Some Googling soon found a suitable replacement which surprised me somewhat as I thought integrated tail lights for a twenty two year old sports bike might be rarer than rocking horse doo-doo! Not only was the exact same one as was already in the bike, it was located in Australia too! Unheard of these days.

I quickly put an order in and the light was here in early January - where it sat until last week. Yep, I have had a lot going on this year and to be honest, working on my bikes takes a back seat to riding them - every time.

Pulling the tail piece off the bike was easy and I was please to see that the light was an exact match for the newly purchased one, right down to the wire colours.

It was meant to be simply plug and play but on closer inspection I could see that some wires had been cut and soldered back in the day. 

No problem, I'll just cut, strip and solder the appropriate wires...following the currently installed wires.

These get cut....

...and go to these.

The result of this little auto electrical work was me determining that I need a better soldering iron (Lucy - the budding electrical engineer - also chipped me last week for having a rubbish soldering iron!) and the R1 getting it's rear end lit up like it should be!

Park light.

Left indicator with park light.

Well, that was a pretty easy job and quite satisfying to finally fix. I can't believe that I have left it for sooooo long.

Cheers.