Taillight running lights problem

[vadim]

Hi,

I tried installing the BackOff tail light module on my 01 600 (US Version).  The weird thing that I noticed when I removed the rear plastic and reconnected the wires (haven't installed anything yet) was that the running lights stopped working.  If I pressed the break the lamp would light up, the license plate lamp was fine, but the breaklights wouldn't  function as running lights.  The only thing that I did was take off the rear plastic assembly, remove the bulbs and put them back in...  Can anyone offer advice here?  How do I diagnose this?  It looks like it's the same set of wires (both hot and ground) that feeds the taillight lamp and the running lights of the dual bulbs.  Could it be something with the bulbs?  I am pretty sure that the lights were OK before.

Thanks!

-Vadim

[Red01]

Easy enough to check the bulbs and be sure they haven't fried the running light filament. It's odd, but not impossible, for both of them to go out on just one filament at the same time. More likely, they aren't making good contact or there's a wire problem on the power wire for the running lights.

[vadim]

Turned out to be the bulbs.  Interestingly enough, I noticed that the filament on one bulb didn't look right, but the other one was fine (tested with multimeter), even though neither one of them worked.  If I remeber the wiring correctly, they are connected in parallel so if one burns out another one should still work.  But in any case, all is well now and the BackOff light is working as expected.

[Sven]

What's involved with installing the Back Off lights?  I have been curious about them.

[vadim]

You need to remove the tail plastics to get access to the tail light.  Place the module in some convenient location with a double sided tape, splice in the wires with posi-lock connectors, assemble everything back together and you are done.  Make sure to cut the right wires :)

It's the first electrical job I had to do on the bike and except for the mishap with the bulbs it went without a glitch.  I'll be installing a headlight modulator next.

[vadim]

http://www.webbikeworld.com/Reviewed-motorcycle-products/posi-lock/

Forgot to mention...  I used the connectors in photos 5 and 6 since I chose to put back-off module next to the taillight itself and there are two wires to split there (one to each light).  If you decide to put the module elsewhere, you'll only need to split one wire.