I recently bought one of those chrome Maltese cross taillights that you see on e-bay all the time, and I am trying to get it working on my 03 DS650, and am having problems. The new Maltese taillight has two wires coming from it, one black and one red. The stock taillight has three wires, one black, one red, and one tan. I am trying to avoid cutting up the stock tailllight, so I found a three prong connector, one end of which will plug into where the stock taillight plugs into near the battery. This new connector has three wires, one red, one black, and one tan. I connected the wires from this plug to the Maltese taillight wires as follows: Red wire from plug to red wire from Maltese taillight, Tan wire from plug to black wire from Maltese taillight, Black wire from plug grounded to mounting bolt on Maltese taillight. After I connected my new plug wired like this to the existing taillight plug, the light did work, but not correctly. Either the taillight would work or the brake light, but not both. I also tried grounding the tan wire from the new plug to the Maltese mounting bolt, and connecting the black wire from the plug to the black wire from the Maltese taillight, and that popped the 25 amp fuse by the airbox, so I assume that's not right either. I know that this is probably mind numbing to try and follow, but does anyone know what I am doing wrong? I am wondering if my ground is the problem. Can you ground a wire to chrome, or does the chrome have to be scraped off? Is my wiring correct? Any input would really be appreciated. Thanks, guys.

 

Unless you change out the actual light socket, it's not going to work.

The new light is just going to be the tail light (when lights are on) or a brake light.

You need the three wires. Not sure on which color is which, but one is the ground, one is the tail light, and the third is the brake light.

 

[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] first get you a test light. Did you get a Light that is both a taillight and brake? Your light may have to be grounded though the light housing . that is one wire for brake the other wire for tail lights ,ground goes though the light housing to the frame. If you just got a tail light one wire for ground and one for positive

 

It is supposed to be both a tail and brake light. The socket uses an 1157 two filament bulb.

 

I finally put on my thinking cap and got the new taillight to work properly. Problem was that the three wires in the connector on the bike did not line up with the color of wires on the new connector. So, when I plugged the two ends of the connector together, the wrong wires were being connected. Funny how, for me, the most obvious thing only occurs to me after hours of fumbling and struggling. The light looks pretty good, I just wonder how it will hold up to the vibration.

 

Had to go through the wire guessing myself on a new light. I did use some rubber washers on the mounting bolts to help with any vibration.

Now, if I can just keep from getting it smacked by the person behind me when we ride.