Repaired a bad front turn signal socket.

[patrick_777]

First post to the boards, but I've been lurking around for a little bit anyway. I picked up an '06 GZ on the 20th of May and have put my first 100 miles on it since then. I know there are a few things I need to do with it, maintenance-wise, and am beginning to prioritize them now.

The first thing I needed to do was repair the left-front turn signal. It worked fine after I picked up the bike, and for a few days after that, but one morning (early and humid) I rode around the neighborhood, getting used to night-riding, and I noticed the signal was out completely. I thought first off that it was just the bulb, but after getting a spare from my storage rack, I couldn't get the old one out. It had somehow corroded itself into the socket.

I let it go for a day or two because work getting in the way of my fun, and then got back to it. I tried to get the bulb out of the socket, but it was just not moving without a bit of destructive persuasion. Finally, I took everything apart and got at the guts of it.

The lens cover was easy along with the gasket beneath it. This is normally just what you take off to change the bulb and get back on the bike. Now, however, I had to unscrew the little brass bracket holding the rubber in place and unscrew the back screw holding the entire light stalk in place. With some prying and pushing from the backside, the rubber holding the socket came loose and now I had a rubber covered socket in my hand with three wires coming out the back. I fought with the socket to try and get a new bulb in it for almost an hour. I bent it this way and that. It totally didn't want to take that bulb. Then, with my needlenose pliers, and some unavoidable pressure, I snapped off one of the contacts inside the socket. It was history now.

The quest for the new socket began in earnest. I took to the internet first and searched high and low for an OEM part for this that was under $60. Not too much luck. Then I searched for just the socket, maybe a generic that would fit the standard bulbs I had. Nothing really turned up much on the net or in forums, but I was meandering through Atwoods (home/farm/ranch store here in NE Oklahoma) and found a "generic turn signal socket". It looked nothing like the first one that came out of the bike, but I thought I could make it work with some old-fashioned, Italian ingenuity. I picked up two of them (.25c each) and a package of fuses just in case.

First, I removed the lens and gasket and placed them aside (screws on the lens). Since I had the bulb out already I removed the mirror reflector in the back of the signal and set it aside as well.

Second, I unmounted the light stalk from the bike and pulled through a few inches of spare wire (heat wrapped) so I could have some play. I pulled the socket and rubber holding out and instead of trying to force out the socket, I simply cut an incision front to back on the underside of the rubber. The socket just slipped right out.

I snipped the wires as close to the socket as possible so I could have a lot of wire and room to splice with.

I stripped all of the wire ends (including the two hanging from the new light socket. I installed a bulb in the new socket and touched one wire (the socket's were black/black, but the bike's was black, black/gray stripe, and solid gray. The solid black wire was the ground. I bent it into an S shape and taped it flat to the metal on the socket. After that, I turned the key on and touch each wire together to the remaining in no such order. I just did it until I got the correct sequence I wanted (dim light = driving light, bright flasher = turn signal). It took about 5 minutes to get to that point. I spliced and taped the ends together and checked the proper results after a dry fit into the stalk and stalk mount. I reinstalled the reflector in the signal's back but had cut through the rubber grommet holding the socket into the stalk without vibrating out. That's when I wrapped about 8 pieces of electrical tape around the outside of the socket and built it up enough to fit into the hole snuggly.

After remounting the stalk and stalk screw onto the handlebar frame, I turned it on expecting fully to see Hiroshima.

Nothing. Just a light. I turned the blinker on and Voile'! C'est Fini'

Here are pictures of the bike.
Flickr Page

It's an 06 GZ250 and it only has 2600 miles on it!

New paint and just perfect condition.

Thanks for letting me share.

Patrick