Replacement for Vetter trunk lights

[Guest]

My new to me 1980 GS1000G had the full Vetter package on it- Windjammer, trunk, and bags. The trunk was in pretty decent shape, but I noticed the ground lead was gone from one of the four lights on the rear of the trunk. I tried to solder on a new wire, but there was not enough contact material left. None of this was surprising for a 32 year old part.

I took it apart to measure and see if there was a modern replacement available. After removing the lens, I saw two rivets held the lamp socket in place. It is black plastic with a metal portion to hold the bulb. I noted there was no seal between this part and the rear panel of the trunk. The socket had deformed over the years and was not flat as it should be.

The socket was 3.5" in diameter or 90mm. Without the bulb or lens, it is about 1.9" deep or 49mm. The panel area on each side where they mount was roughly 4" high x 7" wide. The center hole is about 2" and mine had slots on each side that made the hole about 3" wide. The two rivet holes were top & bottom and also about on a 3" circle. The problem with putting different lights here is this panel is recessed by about 1/4" and it is of an odd non-rectangular shape. You would need 4 round lamps or possibly 2 oval ones.

You'd think it would be easy to find a 3.5" round light to bolt to a flat surface, but it isn't. eBay is loaded with 2", 2.5", and 4" lights. The 4" ones by the time the bezel is involved are way too big to fit, and many of these lamps must fit in a grommet vs. being directly attached. Ditto some rectangular lights I looked at. I don't possess the skills to cut an opening for a grommet, so I kept searching.

While browsing the O'Reilly Auto parts website, I saw some Hella combination lights. I found the Hella online catalog (click on lighting/signal & interior lamps/signal lamps to browse) had lots of information on them.

They offer 172 signal lamps, and I've looked at all of them. Here is a summary of what I found that may or may not work.

Choices
I first looked at a rectangular lamp that is 88mm (3.42") x 89mm (3.46") and has a tri-function: Stop, tail, and turn. It has a red and amber lens and is a "2776" series. You'd need 4 to replace the 4 Vetter lamps. It also looks like I may have to make a plate to hold them in place as the 5mm studs depicted will be inside the 2" opening already there. I may end up with a little more room in the trunk since the bulk of these are outside the trunk. The specific part numbers are left: 002776231 right: 002776241. Here's a couple pictures of one:




These are about $21 each here, so they're not as cheap as I was hoping for, but they appear to be quality lights. I was hoping to find some round lights, but I suppose the round lights are more 60's (think Chevy) so rectangular ones would be OK for an 80's bike.

The Hella "1259" (part # 12590751) are 80mm round and look a lot like the Vetter lamps. I think 80mmm is just too small to cover the holes, and it appears these are only tail lights (no stop function) with a red lens or tail/turn with a red/amber lens that use a weird bulb. Hella lamps are from Germany, so they are not always geared to use USA bulbs.



The H24130061 is an oval tail/stop lamp that by itself is too small. However, with the optional flange it is nearly 7" wide and 4" high, and it may be able to use the OEM mounting holes. It uses the S8/P21W bulbs, and is under $30, plus you'd only need two. This would be the most economical setup, but you'd only have 2 lights vs. the current 4.



EDIT
The Hella lamps are looking to be too difficult to deal with due to oddball bulbs and some size & wiring issues. I've deleted a couple that would not fit. While browsing etrailer.com, I found some waterproof LED taillights with flange that are 7 & 9/16" x 3 & 5/16" x 3/4" and about $18 each with $5 shipping. I made a template out of cardboard and it looks like these may be a good fit. It would be nice if they were completely flat on the back side, but it looks like the flat part will be wide enough to cover the 2" holes. I can seal off the top & bottom holes where the Vetter lamps were.




I'm going to get rid of the old wires and make a new high-quality harness from automotive-grade wire. Here is my proposed wiring diagram if I go with a tail/stop/turn setup:


I'll update as I make progress with this project.

[GS1000G Shopper]

I went with the etrailer LED lights. Aside from funky wire colors, they look to be a good deal. I bench tested them and the stoplight part lit up my ceiling during the daytime. The white wire is the ground, the red stop/turn, and the black is the taillight.

They are a perfect fit for the opening on the trunk. I drilled some 3/16" holes to mount them, and the side holes ended up being right at the edges of the Vetter openings. I sealed up the old Vetter top/bottom mounting holes with some silicone- the lights barely cover these openings. I had to cut away the center parts where the Vetter lights mounted so the wires would feed through OK. I cut some closed cell foam to put behind them to seal them, and ran some 5mm socket head bolts I have through to hold them. On the rear, I'm using some flat washers and acorn nuts. This actually gives slightly more room inside the trunk.

UPDATE
The wiring doesn't do what I want it to do. When I tested the circuit, either the brake flasher or turn signals worked OK, but using one when the other was on resulted in the wrong lights flashing. I'm not sure if this can be made to do what I want- turn signals independent of brakes & vice-versa. At this point, I'm just going to wire it up as tail and stop only.

I like the look for an 80's bike. Here's a few pics:
Wig-wag rough-in:


Lamps installed with Molex connectors (the blue stuff is the closed cell foam):


Rear view:


Revised wiring diagram:

[DanTheMan]

They look similar to what I put in the trunk on my 850. It was blank with no lights so I cut the oval holes, put in the gaskets and installed them, Only problem is they can be pushed out of the gasket with enough force, but they've worked so far. People see my tail and brake lights quite adequately. I also added small red clearance led lights to the covers on my saddlebags and wired them into mt turn signals, and larger red led clearance lights on the sides of the trunk for more visibility.

[GS1000G Shopper]

A lot of the ones I looked at used a grommet to mount them. I don't possess the skill to cut that accurately. I'm testing mine now & they look good. The mounting was about the easiest part.