Topic: turn signals

[natron602]

I've read like 8 posts about wiring and can't find my answer...then again I'm dense. 1975 cb550k. Bought some after market torn signals. They were advertised as not being running lights but lo and behold they have three wires and it appears two filaments. I'd love if they do both but I can't even figure out the basics. The current signals (rear) only have one wire.... the new ones have red green and black. Help!

[Vinhead1957]

Take the lamp out and look inside.  Most likely, you have two electrodes at the base.  That means one of them is the red wire and the other is for the black.  The green wire is connected to the base. It is ground.  Honda gets it ground from the light housing.  You can connect the green to any green in the system wiring.  Honda also only uses one filament bulbs for rear signals and two filament for front signal. 

[natron602]

but i should be able to use it in the rear and wire it as running and signals, right?

[Vinhead1957]

Yes but you need to determine which filament is the dimmer one.  The signal is brighter of the two.

[madmtnmotors]

but i should be able to use it in the rear and wire it as running and signals, right?

Is it red or amber? If it is amber then you need to check the laws in your state. Most states require rear facing running lights to be red.

[jorwesflow]

If you want your rear lights to be running lights and operate just like the fronts (i.e. turn on when your bike is in Park mode of the ignition switch), you don't necessarily have to run wires all the way to the headlight bucket where the Orange/White and Blue/White connections are (which are for your running AKA position AKA park lights)

You can simply run jumpers off of the brown wire that goes to your taillight. This could potentially overload the Taillight fuse, I don't know. If it does, bump up the fuse from a 7A to a 10A maybe.

But as far as which of those aftermarket wires go where, I would assume Green is ground, but I've also seen some aftermarket stuff where Black is ground. Do you have a multimeter?