Installation of electrical connector for tail light assembly

Hey guys, when I got my bike last year, one of the first things I did was rip the HUGE, ugly tail light assembly off and install the Edge tail light with the small LED directional lights. Love it! However, when I did this, I just cut the wires and spliced them together and used black tape. I know, pretty getto but cheap, easy and effective. Well, when I went to get my bike inspected this past week, it wouldn't pass because the lights had to be a larger size, yada yada yada. They told me to just throw the old tail light assembly back on, get it inspected and then throw the Edge lights back on after. SO... I figure if I gotta do that every year, I figured I'd put some connectors on each set of wires (bike, original tail light and the Edge). So I went to Radio Shack and got what I needed for UNDER $10 and threw it all together. I know it's simple enough for most to figure out but I figured I'd document it and post to the forum.

I got 2 male 9 pin connectors and 1 female connector at $2.59 each;


Out of the package;


Here's the bike wires;


and the Edge wires;


I first stripped the wires about 1/4 inch and put em in the silver connectors;


Crimped em and soldered em;


All done with the wires (did this on the bike and both tail light assemblies);


Shoved all wires with connectors into the plastic connector;


Made sure they were all in and straight. I had to bend a couple of em to get them perfectly straight so they'd line up;



Once they were all set;


I used some waterproof silicone to keep out moisture (on the back side of the connector where the wires enter);



And plugged em in (little tight at first but no problem;


And tested the lights;



GREAT SUCCESS!!!
This was a cheap and easy project. Getting the Edge light wires to match took a little re-arranging cuz the wire colors are different. Luckily I didn't blow any fuses because I DID get a couple wires wrong at first. Just DON'T snap the silver connectors all the way in to the big plastic connector until you are sure all the lights work. I will add that there are 2 wires from the bike that hook up to the original tail light assembly that is not needed with the Edge lights. Don't really know what those are for. So I just filled in the 2 extra holes in the e-Edge connector with silicone. And that was it! Now when I have to go through the pain the ass process of changing tail light assemblies to get my bike inspected, at least the electrical part will be no problemo!

Oh, I forgot to post the picture of my friend that watched the whole process;

I would have removed the lens from the OEM lights and temporarily secured them to the Edge lights.

You want bigger ? You got bigger....

I actually asked the bike inspection dudes if I could do that an they told me that not only do the lights have to be a certain size, they have to be spaced apart by a certain length and the brake light of the Edge was way to small. So, I figured this was the easiest way.

nice write up. I did a similar thing but I just used a 5 pin trailer connector and ran all the ground wires from the tail light and blinkers into one. makes it really easy to just remove the whole edge tail light and blinkers when I go to the track or trail riding.

I was going to do that with the ground wires too but this was just as easy.

Really cool idea! I always like to see clean electrical installs, I always tell myself that I will do that. However excitement almost always gets in the way and I end up taking shortcuts like you did at first. I like the idea of using silicon to seal the connector better. I have seen many components stop working because of corrosion in those connectors, I wonder why they don't do that out of the factory? Oh, probably because it makes sense... Never mind.

The one last thing I did when I snapped them together was use Electrical Connector Grease to slide in easy and to keep out moisture. Hopefully it stands the test of time. And dirt, and mud.