There, I fixed it!

About once a year I'll find one rear turn signal on my motorcycle hanging by the wires and the other one will be approaching the same condition. The vibrations of the engine gradually loosen the bolt that holds the signal in place until the signal housing is detached. So just tighten it, right? Well, not really.

In order to tighten the bolt that holds the signal housing in place, the strut cover must be removed. And in order to remove the strut cover without damaging the seat or scratching the powdercoat on the frame the seat must be removed. At this point the rear end of the body is almost entirely disassembled because the bolts that hold the strut cover to the frame also hold the rear fender and brake/tail light housing in place.

The design is unnecessarily complex.

A bolt passes through the strut cover, through a piece of billet aluminum, and threads into the signal housing, thus pinching the strut cover and billet piece between the bolt head and signal housing. Now that these four pieces are assembled, there are two screws that then pass through the strut cover, frame, and rear fender. One threads into a nut and the other threads into a plastic piece with a threaded metal hole that houses the tail/brake light and license plate.

Then there's the wiring, which without removing the wires from the connector, they can't pass through the hole in the fender strut. Thankfully that wasn't part of the job this time.

Some day when I have the time and funds I'm going to completely redesign and rebuild the back end of this motorcycle, but for now I simply cut of the portion of the strut cover that prevents easy removal and added red loctite to the bolts.

Although it may not be the solution some think of as pretty, to my mind it provides ease.