Fender Ornament

[t-man403]

I'm changing out the skull the bike came with to an eagle head. The eyes are able to be wired so they light up. I'm thinking the skull could have been done the same but wasn't. Has anyone done the wiring before and if so, how did you keep the wires attached to the bottom of the fender to avoid the tire rubbing them?
This could be the reason the skull wasn't wired. THX!

[t-man403]

Question answered!!!

I got a great suggestion from the guy's on the good ol' VR site (Volusia Riders).   

[Brian]

t-man, where did you get the eagle head?

[t-man403]

t-man, where did you get the eagle head?

Got it from a local parts dealer here.
It's Kuryakyn and the part # I have is 9026

Here are a couple pix of what I did.

Got rid of the skull.........



in favor of the eagle...........



by routing and sealing the wire this way..........



and ended up with this.........



I used a thin foam tape to cover and hold the wire down and the sealed it all off with a polyurethane sealer\caulking.

[t-man403]

Yes this thread is old but there are only five post in it and four of them are mine.
Dang you guy's a talkative! 

My eagles eye's have stopped glowing. I have lost ground in the fender somehow.
When I use a separate wire touching the bucket and ornament the eyes light up. Shouldn't have to do that though.


I have loosened and re-tightened most of the screws on the fender thinking there may be some corrosion somehow, but that didn't work.
Any thoughts as to why ground has vanished?

[Bone]

Can you get a test light to work using the fender as a ground?  Your Eagles may still be insulated from the fender.

[Brian]

If the light works using a separate wire you may have to run a ground wire to the eagle head from the headlight bucket. When I installed the National Cycle light bar I ran a ground wire from the headlight bucket to the frame using one of the mounting screws for the coils under the tank.  The screws holding the fixture tight to the fender maybe your grounding point for this wire. I would tend to think that having a good ground through the fork tubes would be questionable. Have you checked continuity through the forks to the shell of the eagle head with a multimeter or a 12 volt test light?

[t-man403]

I have not used a meter as of yet.

I just find it odd that the eyes worked good last year ..... till late fall anyway.
Just getting the bike ready for riding this spring and I took the head off and found the bulb was burnt out.
Put in a new bulb, and nothing! Using a separate wire showed I had no ground till I got to the triple tree. Somehow the forks must be isolating ground capabilities, but that doesn't explain why all worked good before.

[t-man403]

Fixed ........... ran a ground wire.