I am moving my 1998 Sporty rear turn signals to a new laydown plate mount from HD. The instructions never say anything about drilling a hole to get the wires from the inside of the fender to the outside, so they can be routed thru the hollow tube, into your turn signal housing. (long sentence I know) Ive read and reread the HD instrs and there is NO way Im going to avoid drilling a hole. There is room between the top of the brake light housing and the bottom of the license plate mounting and the hole would be hid by a reflector on the bottom of the plate holder. On so Im resolved to drilling this hole out to pass thru the 4 wires.. 2 for the left, 2 for the right, turn signals. I need to pull the wires and check their diameter but lets say I had to drill a 3/8" hole. Any tips or suggestions?

bob

 

Don't drill it yet.

You need to get the wires into the taillight base, under the lens. The turn signal wires plug into the taillight housing.
Post a picture of the laydown, or a link to one.

 

Here is a link to the HD page...

bob

 

The next biggest thing is to get the turn wires out of the fender mount holes. I can't remember if they come out of the hole with the connector still attached or not. I was thinking they do. you need to remove the taillight lens and look for the connection point.
You might consider filing a little notch in the taillight housing to allow the turn wires into the junction spot after you mount the turn signals to the plate mount. I did that to mine when I moved mine to the rear. Sorry it is hard to see in this pic, but the wires come up from the signals and into the housing at the lower corners of the taillight.

 

It looked to me like I removed the wires from inside the existing signals and pulled that toward the rear of the bike. Fed those thru the fender and into the 2 slots on the bottom of the arm that holds the 2 turn signals. Ive got pics... just gotta post.. Appreciate your help and ideas...

bob

 

Here are the pics I was talking about

1st pic is the plate holder top and turn signal arm bottom...

2nd pic is the 2 of them in the assembled position...

3rd pic is the back side of the turn signal arm with all 4 holes...

bob

 

ok, I looked around and it looks like there is another way. In this thread, it talks about doing this and a guy says he just drilled a hole through his plate mount, the gasket and the fender. He did it this way so there isn't a visible hole.

 

If it works anything like mine did (not a HD part), the license plate frame only used 2 of the 3 mounting holes and used the 3rd mounting hole to run the wires through the fender.

 

Thats a tempting idea too. I will take that into consideration too. Thanks..

bob