Hooked a trailer yesterday with a tail light and the license light out. Stopped at a truck stop with a shop near tomorrow's first stop to serve the federal make-no-money sentence forced on truckers. Seems the tech is out recovering from some STD or drug overdose or something. Nobody knew for sure. Squirt lots of homemade sterilizer all over.
Got back to the truck to take a look. seems the wires from electrical box under doors to curb side tail and license light had been whacked, pulled too tight, and road vibration had pulled a couple plugs apart and pulled a couple wires out of plugs. Went to rehook wires in box and noticed white wire (typically ground) was hooked to same stud as several brown wires (typically fused hot from switch). Not right! Studied about 3 seconds and determined tail/license brown wire hooked to ground stud with all the other light circuits ground wires. Not right!
So, how to determine if tail and/or license light wires were reversed since LEDs usually don't work when wired backwards? Reversed dead circuit's wire connections to proper studs and VOILA!, both worked perfectly. Best thing, no fuses blew and nothing caught fire.
Not to mention threads in plastic wire stud box lid were stripped so had to glue the lid back on with a couple dabs of gasket sealer. Last person to attempt repair was in way over his/her head and really messed it up.
Cost of repair? $00.00.
Converting all lights on my Nighthawk 750 to LEDs to run an extra headlight with the energy difference. Going to 35 watt LEDs in all 3 headlights. Plus, LEDs almost never burn out. 1157s typically draw about 8.3 watts in running mode, 32 watts in brake/turn modes. LEDs are brighter and only draw about 0.3 watts, so each converted bulb allows 8 watts in running mode. Front turns and tails converted show 32 watts available for an extra headlight. Also turns and tails will be about as bright as a 55 watt H4 halogen headlight in turn and brake/turn mode.
Converting the original H4 headlight to LED provides 20 more watts towards the 3rd headlight. Converting the gauge lights adds up to about 10 watts, so total electrical load will be about the same as stock. Converting all the indicators to LED should make up the few watts difference.
Problem is, lots of online sources claim to have done such a project, but I don't think so. NOBODY has part numbers and practically EVERYBODY complains about LEDs being too dim or too bright. I've found most LEDs are available with different light dispersion patterns. An indicator light can be way too bright with a 15* pattern, just right with a 90* pattern, and too dim with a 180* pattern, all 3 bulbs drawing the same watts. NOBODY can answer questions about such things. So, most online sources are typical online BS, with bits of reality here and there. Even CLYMER is wrong about the bulbs used in the gauges. I had to disassemble the gauges and identify each light according to oddball sources.
For instance, 1157 bulbs can supposedly replace any of the following: 1016, 1034, 1034A, 1034LL, 1034NA, 1035, 1157, 1157A, 1157ALL, 1157LL, 1157NA, 1157ST, 1178A, 1196, 198, 198LL, 198NA, 2057, 2057A, 2057ALL, 2057LL, 2057NA, 2057ST, 2357, 2357A, 2357ALL, 2357LL, 2357NA, 2397, 2397LL, 3496, 3496LL, 7528, 7528L, 7528LL, 94 Which is correct? Depends on color. WARNING: I know from experience that 1157 bulbs will not replace 2057 bulbs in some applications because the cup measurements are not exactly right. Hard to find the problem when you replace 1157s with other 1157s and the intermittently don't work due to no ground from the couple thousandths difference in cup diameter from the original 2057s. Learned that with an S10 pick up. Got it really cheap because the tail lights and brake lights didn't work. Watch for such things. On the Nighthawk, superbrightLEDs calls for 2057s, and for gauge lights 158s, but claims 194s are the way to go. Only the turn indicator and speedo illumination are 158/194. All the rest are something else. CLYMER also calls for 3 identical gauge illumination bulbs, but you really have 2 of one, 1 of the other. NOBODY seems to know.
Added complications include aftermarket turn signals that don't match wire color cords. Same goes for the flasher plug--all wires are black.
I will get the conversion done, but I only get a couple hours a month to work with the bike.
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