After moving my turn signals off the struts, I feel like the wires are just pulled a bit too tight for my comfort. The connectors are pulled halfway out from under the seat out towards the rear fender.

I am planning to extend the wires by a few inches just so that I can tuck them neatly back in. I bought a soldering iron, some 20 gage wire hoping that Should work since it was all they had, and some silver solder. I have some small heat shrink around as well I think.

I've watched some videos, but anyone have any tips or tricks to share? These wires sure are thin!

 

Do what's called the western union method:




It creates a mechanical bond first then you add the solder to further strengthen. Solder alone isn't that strong. Get the iron nice and hot, tin it (apply solder direct to tip of iron, coating it evenly), then touch it to the joint you made as above and touch solder to the joint. It should flow into the joint. Slide heat shrink over, hit it with a heat source (lighter, heat gun), and you're good to go.

 

Thanks Matt,

With such narrow gage wires do I need to heat shrink each individually and stagger the cuts or can I wrap each completed wire in electrical tape then heat shrink the 3 wires in one tube?

 

Is the stock wiring 20ga? I think it's 18ga on my bike. Whatever it is make sure it matches. I forgot about staggering. Yes it's a good idea to stagger and shrink individually. Make sure your heat shrink is the right diameter or else it won't work well, should be slightly larger than the wire insulation. For really clean solder jobs I have a pair of Irwin wire strippers. They remove the exact same amount of insulation from each wire you set them to and automate the process. Wire and solder are cheap practice some before you jump in.

 

Genius, I will be using this

 

It may be 18g, I tried looking it up while in the store but got mixed results, shop didn't have anything less than 20g either. Some links said that anything from 18-22 should work?

I'll be joining sections in the middle to keep the connector pins intact so if stock is 18 then I would have a completed wire that would be 18-20-18. Think this will be a problem?

 

It should work but I always use same diameter wire when splicing. I don't know if it'll throw off your CAN-BUS.

 

As one of the more knowledgeable members has posted before, the way these things vibrate, soldering might not be the way to go. Perhaps use crimp style connectors instead.....

 

Why are those better? I've not heard of that before

 

If you do it like I said it won't ever fail. If you want to go the lazy route and have room for bulk you can buy some posiloc connectors. They work well on a motorcycle.