Either taking them off and having them coated or replacing them with black ones would be the same amount of work...how else would the new ones get installed???

 

Its far easier to pop the wires off the socket, and pull the rubber grommet through the housing than it is to mess with fishing the connectors out from inside the frame.

Although it seems you've already done this, for anyone else interested, I posted a How-to on this. Easier to just paste it here I suppose;

1) Go to your local auto parts store and grab a box of assorted rubber grommets
2) Pull off the lens cap & remove the light bulb
3) Make a mark on the small white piece (where the contacts are) and the housing, so you can line it up when you replace that small white piece.
4) Using pliers, pull the rubber grommet out of the hole in the turn signal housing
5) The grommet is part of the insulation, so, you have to cut it off. Use a *new* single edged razor and carefully split it in half (in the same direction the wire runs). Pull it off the wires, the finish cutting it off. Throw it away.
6) Push the wires into the housing a ways (to give you some slack for the next step)
7) The "guts" of the light just pull straight out. They are held in by friction. Get something (a screwdriver or a pointy object of some sort), down into the socket. There are some notches in the socket you can hook into. Work from a couple of different positions and wiggle it out.
8) Pull the black wire out by sticking a small screwdriver (like a jewelers screwdriver) behind it (nearest the center of the socket)
9) Put the black wire into the center hole, next to the blue & purple wires, then push all three out through the front of the housing from the back.
10) The blue and purple wires are in a small white piece. Mark the piece with a sharpie so you can put them back in the same spot (I just put a 'P' where the purple wire goes).
11) Remove the blue & purple wires from that white piece. Don't lose the spring!
12) pull the wires out of the turn signal housing
13) Find the appropriate sized grommet (the package I bought had small, medium & large - the medium one was perfect). Slip the black wire through the grommet first (it will take a little work because of the connector. Now slip one of the other two wires through, and then, the last one. Again, you have to work that last one through.
14) Slide the grommet down over the black insulated part of the wire (a little spit or KY would help here)
15) Feed the wire back through the turn signal housing and fit the grommet into the hole (again, a good time for a little spit or KY).
16) Now you're ready to put everything back together - Watch your order here!
You need to slide the reflector onto the wire, then the spring, then you can fit the purple and blue wires back into that white piece.
17) Slip the connector on the black wire back into its slot
18) Pull the wires from the back of the housing, lining up your mark on the white piece with your mark on the housing.
19) Almost done - stick the light bulb back in, turn on your ignition switch & make sure it works. Check the turn signal too!
20) If everything works fine, take the light bulb back out. If not - figure out why not. (You probably don't have that white thing in the right way - pull it out, turn it, try again)
21) Shove the guts back into the turn signal housing & tidy up your wiring.
Done!

 

replacing them only requires you unplug old signals and plug new ones in... to powdercoat you need to remove the element inside the signal housing as well as run the wiring out of the housing....twice the work if not more.
Also getting to the wiring to disconnect is a piece of cake no matter what problems others seem to have..

 

Yeah... it's really easy! Just;
1) Remove the seat
2) Remove gas tank bolts
3) slide tank back a little and prop it up with something
4) Remove battery cover
5) Remove battery
6) Remove battery tray
7) Remove rear wheel
8) Pop the plug out of the rear fender
9) Try to dig through the mess to cut the cable tie on the wiring harness
10) Pull the rubber plug from the right side of the frame, near the neck
11) Alternately push from the back of the bike and pull from the front
12) In less than 3 hours, you will have gained about 4 inches of slack, allowing you to unplug the turn signals
Reverse all the above steps, and, in less than a keg of beer, you're all done!

What the heck kind of cake do you eat man??

 

why on gods green earth do you need to remove the rear wheel???
Every correct thing you listed takes about 10 min. to do total. you have to loosen 5 bolts and cut a couple zip ties... don't think that takes 3 hours...LOL

 

check my gallery, I removed them completely & used the new mirrors with turn signals, its available in black now.

 

I don't know about your bike, but on mine, if I'm getting anywhere near the lower end of the rear fender, the wheel would have to come out.
Either that, or maybe I just have fat hands.

And nothing ever takes me 10 minutes. If I just have to pull out a bolt, look at it, and put it back in, it will take 3 hours. First, the bolt head will strip. Then, once I get a grip on it and start turning it, the bolt will break. Then I'll break 3 drill bits trying to make a hole for the E-Z out, and in the process, drill through something else on the bike, which I will then have to also replace. Once in, the E-Z out will break off in the bolt, so I'll have to go buy a diamond tipped titanium bit to drill that out. The process will be repeated on at least one other bolt I'll end up removing to replace the thing I accidentally drilled through trying to get the first bolt out. Eventually, I'll resort to a cutting torch, hand grenades, nuclear weapons and teenage **** sex (just seeing if you're paying attention - not that I'm opposed to teenage **** sex in any way - but that's a different thread). When I'm nearlyl done, I'll read the manual again, to find I was originally trying to move the wrong bolt. I will finally notice the note I ignored early which says "Do not try to remove this other bolt. It is welded in, and you'll end up breaking your E-Z out trying to get it out!". I'll finally give up, call my wrench and have him come over to fix my screw up, while I sit in my office and post stupid **** on the HD forums.