When Micky & Minnie needed a Love den where they could screw and make baby mice, they chose the little cubbyhole between rear taillite and ECU. The leads to both rear signals and tail light were chewed complete thru or down to bare wire. The 3 prong connector into tail lite was ruined also. The connector is available only with purchase
really expensive complete wiring harness. So how do I hook up tail lite? Any options?
TIB

If you have the wires poking out off of the main wiring harness, you can use crimp on contacts, male and female. Auto supply will have them. 18 AWG is fine but if that looks too big, I see no reason you couldn't go with much smaller contacts as long as the wire will fit in the crimp hole. The contacts in the OEM connector are tiny so small contacts should have no bearing on the amount of current. I just tested this circuit a few days ago without the city lights connected and LED tag light instead of OEM. The whole thing drew 0.25 amps with the brake light on. I'm sure you do not need to worry about the size of the contacts. With city lights and OEM tag light, it's probably just 2.5~3 amps. Just make sure you identify +/- with a test light and hook the wires up accordingly. The wire insulation color will give you a clue but I would still test with a test light to be safe. Squirt a dab of RTV on the connection (good corrosion protection measure) and cover with shrink tube or electrical tape.

The next step up is set a piece of cardboard in the tail to protect it from hot drips and solder. Test the wire connections first to make sure you solder wire A to wire A and wire B to wire B and so forth. RTV and shrink tube. Use rosin core 60/40 lead/tin solder and a soldering gun or pen. No acid core solder. AVOID inhaling the fumes off the lead solder! Get a fan out there in the garage...there will be smoke and your face will be right in it. You can get lead free solder but it probably requires higher temp to melt it. Also, I recommend using flux on the wire connection before soldering.

I just learned to solder this winter and I found this video extremely helpful. It will tell you everything you need to know and you can order all the stuff off Amazon from the list in the description. I did and everything worked very well. The helping hands was not very stable but if you just hot glue it to a piece of 6" x 6" cardboard, that will keep it from tipping over so easily. The magnifying glass is cool but it would take a lot of practice to develop the hand eye coordination to solder under magnification. You probably will have no use for the helping hands on this job but it's a nice bench tool.

The cadillac version would be to solder the turn signal wires (sounds like the wires were chewed but the connectors must be fine) and wire up new connectors for the tail light wire. Any 2 pin connector will work. Click on any of the pics in this ad to view the variety of pin configs. I don't see any that look like the OEM tail light connectors here but do a search online and see if you can find one that looks like OEM and that is probably it.

http://www.cycleterminal.com/motorcycle-connectors.html

Sue them fucking rats and get the money so i will cut a connector off a wiring harness and ship it to you !!!!

* Last updated by: Badzx14r on 6/5/2018 @ 3:34 PM *

?? Thanks for the advice/help Rook. Using your method, I got the turn signals back on track OK. So I now got 3 small single wire connectors with an inch or two of new wire and shrink tubing pushed on (installed) on the 3 tangs coming from the back of tail/brake lite ready to be reconnected to the original wires from the wiring harness.
You can probably guess what's coming.
I failed to keep track of what goes where.
So it looks like I have 3 wires, one red wire, one black w/yellow stripe, and one blue or purple w/red stripe, and 3 tangs from back of tail lite (right, left, and center). Which wire to which tang?
Right and left tang as facing rearward and looking at the back of tail lite. I think that red wire goes to center tang but not sure. I have been unable to get clear answer by trying to read/follow wiring diagram.
Please help, the fr*#%)ing cops will be happy to bust me for no lites in back. Thanks.

PS I now got 2 new pussycats stationed on guard in the garage to (hopefully) deal horrible, deadly death to all mice and other vermin.

TIB

Two questions:

Is this a Gen1?

Is this an Australia bike?

The order on the diagram for 2008 is standing behind the bike looking straight down at the tail light:

LH -- red

Middle -- Black/Yellow

RH -- Black/red

LOL I don't see any purple wire on the diagram.

Can anyone confirm that the order of the wires in the SM wiring diagram are in fact the order the wires are arranged in real life?

Don't guess on this, Tib. I think the LED would just not light but you will burn out an incandescent bulb if you run power backwards or maybe worse. Wait until we get this figured out.

I guess the SM wiring diagram does not necessarily show the proper order. I do also see a purple in there.

This is my bike, Tib. Gen1 2008 US model. Red is on clutch lever side, Black/yellow on brake lever side and Purple/brown in the middle (that might be Red/brown?). I have a pic from the brake lever side as well if you want to see it.

It's possible the purple and red are hot wires and you might be able to transpose those without a problem. I assume the black/yellow is a common ground and that can only go to the brake lever side. You will get backwards current if you put a hot wire on the brake lever side.

* Last updated by: Rook on 6/17/2018 @ 12:38 PM *

Sue them fucking rats and get the money so i will cut a connector off a wiring harness and ship it to you !!!!

The tail light shakes around a bit and if those contacts come off + to - you will have a short. crush the females down a bit before you push them on so they fit nice and tight. Probably would be ok. I would get a real connector on there soon though.

This might be it. Top one. Yazaki .050 3 pin.

http://www.cycleterminal.com/yazaki-ssd.html

I would consider taking 1bad up on that if the price is right. You know you'll get the right connector. Solder the wires up or butt connect. I would solder so you can forget about fussing with it ever again.

2009 Gen 1 calif model not Australia
Thanks Rook, u da man, just the type o shit I needed 2 know. The wire colors in your photo are same as mine.
So much for my guess of red to middle tang. If not for the quick reply, I surely woulda hooked it up wrong. I also was concerned about connectors getting loose over time. They just don't feel as snug and soild as I would like.

Later...

Just finished hooking up wires per you suggestion, started up the bike, checked the brake lite and guess what happened ??? Well you know what happened. Another happy chump that is glad to be able to turn to this forum
for solid answers and good advice. Thank you gentlemen. I have a few cther ???'s but I'll save for another time.
It's 2PM Sunday 81 degrees, clear and sunny here in SoCal and I just finished putting the bike back together, and she seems to be runnin just fine. Hmmmm..just can't decide, will it be beach, mountains, or desert?

TIB

All three!Your ninja will get you there in no time!;)

So much for my guess of red to middle tang. If not for the quick reply, I surely woulda hooked it up wrong.

I think it would have been fine if you put either of the reds in the middle. Both positive, both on the same fuse. Put either reds to the brake side and I think you would have some toast.

Just finished hooking up wires per you suggestion, started up the bike, checked the brake lite and guess what happened ??? Well you know what happened.

No I didn't. Don't scare me like that!

Another happy chump that is glad to be able to turn to this forum
for solid answers and good advice. Thank you gentlemen.

Enjoy the ride for me. I'm still fiddling with projects on the bike, looking for a home seeing if I have money for tires and doing doing lesson plans. I'll be lucky if I ride by October.

OH-- and paying insurance for my truck which is overdue again! Better drive slow to the State Farm office tomorrow. LOL I'm on the grace period. I wouldn't pull that that one again.

* Last updated by: Rook on 6/18/2018 @ 12:10 AM *

...checking to see what child support I owe.