Installing rear turn signals on the VTX 1800c

Preface
These are directions to install Kuryakyn LED turn signals (Kuryakyn part# 2361) on the rear of a VTX 1800 "C" model using the rear frame rail bolt as a mount. These lights are available from HDL for about $85. The 2361 part# is the amber lights, you can get red if you prefer - heck, you can get halogens instead of LED's and follow this same install procedure. Let me apologize now, this write up was done long after I'd added my lights so the pics will all show the lights already installed. In addition the pics will not be as detailed as they could have been if I were snapping pics while my bike were still in pieces. I hope my directions are still good enough to help give you the right idea.
This project affects parts of the electrical system on your bike so if you should decide to undertake this task you will need the proper tools and know-how to pull it off. If you are unsure of what you are doing this project could result in damage to your bikes electrical system. Any similar work performed on your vehicle is done at your own risk. This is a time-consuming and tedious task (it took me 2 evenings working late after work), but if you are careful and take your time I'm certain you can complete it.

Preparation/supplies
In order to do this you will need the lights, mounts and the tools necessary to pull off your rear fender:

motorcycle jack or some means of hoisting the bike (we need to disconnect the rear shocks)

10, 8 and 6mm allen wrenches

10 and 12mm socket (w/ extension to make life easy)

Aftermarket turn signals (I used the Kury #2361)

Kury bullet light mounting kit (Kury part #2289 about $10 from HDL)

hacksaw

A few feet of 18 gauge wire in the 2 colors you prefer (they will be used to extend the signal wires which are too short)

soldering iron and solder

"bullet" type crimp connectors that fit the stock "sleeve" plugs under the right side cover and a crimp tool

I also recommend getting some heatshrink tubing and/or electrical tape to seal everything back up nicely.

Getting started
To start out slide the black wire sheathing completely off of the signals. There is no way these wires with the sheath will fit through the mounting bolts (I tried for hours). Depending on the length of wires you got with your lights you may have to extend them a bit in order to make sure they reach from the mounting location to under the right side panel, I did. Wait to extend the wires for now since we will need to get the wires through the mounting bolts at a later time and the bulky solder joints would make that difficult.

Out with the old...
With the new lights ready to install we need to disassemble the rear fender and remove the old lights. If you have a service manual page 2-3 discusses removal of the rear fender. This is probably a good time to get the bike up on the jack, it makes life easier to not have to bend down to do everything. Now let's remove the seat by pulling these 3 nuts/bolts:

I highly recommend buying a set of allen head sockets, you won't be sorry with all the use you get out of them working on the bike (especially when you need to torque something!)
With the seat pulled go ahead and pop off your right side cover to display your wire harness

The wires coming through the grommet from the rear fender are what runs your rear signals and brake/running light. Slide back the clear plastic sheath to display all the "bullet" and "sleeve" connectors that run power back there. Take careful note of which wires are connected to which plugs so that plugging everything back up again later will be a breeze. Unplug all the wires that run through the grommet so we can remove the rear fender.
With the bike up on the jack, support the rear tire with something solid (bucket, phone books, etc...) and take out both upper shock bolts with a 12mm socket:

Once the upper shock bolts are removed you can slide the shocks off the top mounts. You will see there is a 10mm allen head where the upper shock bolt screws in. Get your 10mm allen wrench and take that sucker out too. Mine was H-A-R-D to get out, I had to use a 4 foot section of pipe as a breaker bar and be careful not to break my ratchet or knock the bike off the lift in the process. With both of the upper shock mounts removed we can move on to the fender rails. Using an 8 and 6mm allen head you can remove the rear fender rail bolts and the fender.

I HIGHLY recommend having an extra set of hands around to help prevent you from scraping your paint when pulling these bolts and removing the fender.
With the fender off you can see what we have to contend with as far as wiring is concerned. You can carefully bend up the little tabs holding the wires against the fender and then remove the stock rear signals completely using an 8mm socket:

I snapped these pics on my buddies VTX since my stock signals and entire plate mount were already gone. Speaking of, if you've decided to remove the entire (UGLY) stock plate mount for whatever reason - aftermarket replacement setup, Sidemount plate, etc - now is a good time to chop off that ugly chunk of metal hanging down back there. Here is a pic of mine already chopped, you should be able to clearly see what needs to be cut when you look at yours.

I used a dremel tool with the round cutoff wheels to cut mine off, if you do this wear safety glasses since sometimes the discs will break and fly all over. Be careful and take your time and this should turn out nicely. Make sure you have some touch-up paint on hand to put on the fresh metal you just exposed!!!

In with the new...
With the fender off and the old signals removed we need to test fit our mounting bolts for length. Run the hollow mounting bolt through the last hole in the fender rail and into it's mounting hole in the fender. With the hollow mount bolt "roughly" snugged in place make a mark on the bolt flush with the inside of the fender rail. When the bolt is cut you want it to sit flush with the inside of the hole, if it sticks out it may catch on the tire (that's bad!) Here are pics from the inside of my fender showing how the mount bolts should look after they are cut:

Anyone know who Bob is? Email me if you do, hehe.
Now, with the bolts marked for length remove them and cut them with the hacksaw. Afterwards it's not a bad idea to clean the inner and outer edges with a file to prevent chaffing on the wires. With the bolts cut down to size now would be a good time to extend the light wires - remember to slide the adjustment nut and mounting bolt on first or else you'll never get the soldered wires through them!

Extending the wires by about 1 foot should be enough depending on how short Kury made your wires, mine only needed about 1 foot of extension. Make sure you note which color wires you soldered to the light's wires to extend them so that when you're rewiring under the right side cover and can't see your connections (under the fender) you won't have to play the guessing game.

With the wires extended and the mount bolts cut down to size you can go ahead and put the wire, mount bolts and lights back through the fender rail and into the fender with a little bit of slack so you can still maneuver everything back onto the bike. At this point I put heatshrink tubing around the wires to help protect them and used a little liquid electrical tape (rubber goo in a bottle) to help seal the wires around the mount bolt. You can see all this in the pics above. With this done reroute the wires through the fender under the little metal tabs and back through the grommet at the front of the fender. Get all your wires snugged down and in place and push the little metal tabs back snug to hold them. In order to get the left side wires to the right side I used zip-ties running along the inner fender support. I was VERY careful about placement of them and made sure they were very snug - the last thing I want is for one to catch the tire, come off and let the wire rub the tire.

Finishing up
With all the wires run, mounts in place, etc we are ready to put this mess back together! I consider it a necessity to have at least one extra set of hands for putting the fender back on. With the mount bolts in place holding the fender rails to the fender you need to carefully spread the fender rails out as you slide the fender back in place. There is no easy way to describe this process, but I believe that if you took the fender apart you will understand what it will take at this point to get it back on. Once the fender is back in place you put the 8mm allen bolts back through the fender rails and snug them up. The 6mm allen bolts are now, of course, replaced by the lights so snug the light mount bolts down now too.

With those in place you can also put the 10mm allen head upper shock mounts back in place. Honda does not give a spec for tightening this bolt, but BigLry says 40 ft/lbs so that's fine by me. With that shock mount back in place you can reattach the shocks and snug those bolts with a 12mm socket.

It's very important to torque these bolts to 20 ft/lbs since they are what holds your shocks in place, yet allows them enough slack to flex as needed. At this point your entire fender should be back in place and bolted up, you can put your seat back on now if you want to or do it later, either way...
To adjust the lights on the rear fender "eyeball" them about where you want them and then measure from the floor to the bottom edge of the light with the bike level (I had mine level on the jack). When both lights are the same distance from the floor they should be just about identical (close enough for me!) Once they are where you want them you'll have to snug the adjusting nuts to lock them in place.

Wiring
With the nuts & bolts of this project done all that is left is to wire the new lights into the existing harness under the right side cover. Unless you have an aftermarket flasher module to control the speed the lights flash I'd recommend reviewing my procedure for installing the load equalizer before moving onto this step. If you review that procedure you can wire the lights and the load EQ in together.
To start you can plug your tail-light wires back into the stock harness since you didn't modify these at all. These are a solid green wire, green wire with yellow stripe and black wire with brown stripe. These should plug directly back into a solid green wire, green wire with yellow stripe and black wire with brown stripe respectively using the stock bullet & sleeve type connectors. With that done you can now concentrate on wiring the lights - remember what I said about the load equalizer so you can wire these at the same time if necessary.
In order to wire these lights up I recommend buying some bullet type crimp connectors from any hardware or auto parts store. This makes things easy so you can still plug and unplug them if you should ever need to. Coming from the bike harness there is a light blue, orange, and green wire with sleeve type connectors (the green wire has a dual sleeve to accept both the left and right ground bullet plugs). Each Kury light has a black, violet and a blue wire. If you extended these wires then substitute whatever colors you spliced into each one.
The blue wires will not be used unless you are wiring up running lights as well, if you're doing that you will need an aftermarket flasher unit since this bike is not designed to do this. Since we don't need the blue wires you can cap them, tape them, cut them off, etc - just tuck them away out of the way. Put bullet crimp connectors on the ends of the black and violet wires (if you're wiring the load EQ also, crimp those wires in as directed in that walkthrough). You want to plug the two Kury black wires into the bikes green wire and one Kury violet wire into the light blue and the other into the orange. The light blue is your right side and the orange is your left side - so remember that when plugging these up.
If you're doing this on an 1800 "C" model you'll need to also install a diode under your dash panel to make your lights flash properly.

Afterthoughts
This is a fairly in depth project that took me 2 long evenings to do. With more info ahead of time I most likely could have completed this in one evening and definitely in one Saturday. Gather all the materials needed ahead of time to make the job go smoother - the right tool makes every job much easier. Don't underestimate the convenience of having an extra set of hands around, it makes the project that much more enjoyable and helps prevent damage to the paint on your fender. I hope this write-up helps you out and as always feel free to ask if you have any questions.