VTX turn signal/running light mod

Preface
Let me preface this entire write-up by saying that I did this mod on my buddy's VTX 1300 since I already have aftermarket Kuryakyn LED blinkers on my VTX 1800 - but the tail end of these bikes are nearly, if not, identical so everything should still work just fine. What we're doing here is giving ourselves red rear running lights without paying the $50-$100 for the kits that do it for you. Total cost to do this mod is less than $3 for the parts you'll need, otherwise you just need some basic tools. For anyone concerned with your turn signals working properly, using the single LED setup like this gives you the look of running lights but when you hit your blinker it will "overpower" the red LED and work just like stock (you can see pics at the bottom here).
When you're done you'll go from

This

To this

Preparation/supplies
Before doing this mod I looked around at the different LED's available on the net and decided on buying from http://www.superbrightleds.com/. I bought 3 different types of red LED's to get a feel for which one would work best and decided on the RL5-RD1560 since it was the most diffused at 60 degrees of beam width. At just $0.56 each it cost more to ship the bulbs then they cost. In order to make these LED's work on a 12 volt DC system (car/bike electrical system) it is necessary to put a 1/2 Watt 330 Ohm resistor in series before the LED. These can be bought from Radio Shack in packs of 5 for $0.99.
Once you have these parts you'll need some wire, I used telephone wire (22 gauge) since it's what I had handy and these LED's pull such small amounts of current that it shouldn't cause any problems. Altogether you could probably wire the entire setup with 1 foot of this wire for each side (2 feet total) but I allowed plenty of slack for convenience in routing the wires.
When all is said and done the circuit we're building will be like this:

Getting started
First I prepped the LED's by soldering the wires to them. I used a wire wrap tool to connect the wire and LED pretty solidly, then reinforced that with solder. It's important to note that LED's have to be connected a certain way - the longer lead coming out of the LED is the positive lead and the shorter one is the negative lead. Make sure to pay attention to this when connecting your wires or else your LED's will not work!!! Since LED's are VERY heat sensitive I use alligator clips for heatsinks to help pull the heat away from the LED.

After they were soldered up I used heat-shrink tubing to separate the leads and prevent shorting out.

That's about all the prepwork you can do away from the bike so then I moved onto fishing wires on the bike.

Disassembly
I pulled the signal lenses off the bike by the one phillips screw under the housing.

With those lenses off I moved onto pulling the taillight assembly since that's where I would be pulling the wires to. First remove these screws on the lens:

With those off remove the bulb and then the 2 screws holding the reflector in place:

With that done you can use a 8mm socket to reach under the fender and pull off the 2 bolts holding the assembly into the fender:

When you are done you should have this:

(the grey wires are the LED wires already pulled which we'll discuss in the next section)

Wiring
It took longer to fish these wires through the turn signals than everything else in this project. I used an 8mm socket to remove the signals from the fender and with the lens off I was able to fish the wires through the post. If you want to make it a little easier the light holder assembly inside the light can be taken off by pulling out the 2 little gold screws at the back and sliding off the assembly from the post. Make sure to take out the bulb first!

I used a piece of extra wire lubed with a little WD40 as a pull wire to get the LED wires through. Once they were through I left enough extra wire in the housing to make a coil around the bulb (like in the pic above) for when you need to replace the turn signal bulb in this housing. Then I routed the rest of the wire under the wire clamps under the fender. You can see they are the grey wires in this picture:

Then I pulled them through the grommet where the tail light wires come through and stripped back the insulation to leave me with just the wires to work with. With the wires fished through and ready I stripped back some insulation on the green and brown wires going to the tail light. The color code back here is like this:

Green = ground
Brown = running lights
Green/Yellow = brake lights

We won't be touching the brake light since these will just be setup as running lights.
With the wire stripped back I soldered the ground wires to the solid green wire and the 330 Ohm resistor to the brown wire. After the resistor was in place I soldered the other end of the resistor to the power wires for the LED's.

When I was done I wrapped what I could with heat shrink tubing and the rest with electrical tape. I made sure to completely cover everything so the connections were weathertight and wouldn't short out. With everything wired up you can test the lights by turning on the key. If all is done correctly your LED's should now light up as running lights!

Mounting the LED's
With the amber lenses removed find and mark the center of the lens. These lenses had a small circle in the center of the lens leftover from the process of making them, yours may too. I used a 1/16" bit to make a starter hole in the center of the lens. Make sure when drilling that you go slow and let the bit do the work. Drilling through the plastic will go quickly, but if you put too much pressure you can shatter the lens. After the starter holes were drilled I stepped my way up one bit at a time until I was at 3/16". At this point I test fit the LED's and found the holes to be just barely too small so I stepped to a 13/64" bit and they fit fine. I'd recommend stepping up slowly in bit size and test fitting the LED's after each hole so that you don't go too big. You can always drill bigger, but you can't make the hole smaller!

With the holes drilled and the LED's wired I used a little bit of clear silicone to glue/seal the LED's into the lens. After the silicone was dry it was simply a matter of retracing our steps in reverse order to put everything back together.

Afterthoughts
This was an extremely easy and inexpensive project when you consider the results. The hardest part was fishing the wires through the turn signal posts, but everything else was pretty straight-forward. All it takes is some very basic electronics and mechanical skill to accomplish and it gives you a much brighter profile from behind which equals a safer riding experience.

Before pics

After pics