Post by 90GTVert on Feb 15, 2010 6:01:08 GMT -5
Tail/Brake Light Repair
Chinese scooters are notorius for having substandard tail/brake light sockets. I currently own 3 Chinese scooters and 3 of 3 have had issues with the light socket. It always starts with me noticing that either the tail light or brake light is not working. Then I realise that the bulb is loose in the socket and makes poor contact or rattles itself loose. I replaced one with a new housing and another with an LED tail/brake light combo. The third time around I decided to replace the socket instead. This is by far the cheapest option.
I picked up a socket for 1157 and other dual contact light bulbs from NAPA.
Start out by cutting the wire harness off of the old socket. Be sure to leave plenty of wire.
Cut the old socket out of or off of the housing, and clean the hole up so there are no protusions or sharp edges.
The new socket uses 2 tabs to hold it in place. Cut a small slot on each side of the hole created by cutting the old socket out. I chose to make the slots on the small side for an extra tight fit. If you cut the slots a little larger you could remove the socket easier if necessary. Sorry, there is no pic of the slots before I installed the socket because I inserted the tabs to test fit and the socket was so secure that I didn't want to try to remove it.
This new socket has 2 terminals to supply + power to the tail and brake light, but no ground. The bulb can be grounded by attaching a lead to the metal casing. I decided to drill a hole in one of the mounting tabs and wrap a wire around that for grounding.
The wire should be soldered to secure it. You may be able to solder the wire to the base without drilling a hole and wrapping the wire, but I think this way is a little more secure.
All that's left now is to connect the new socket to the stock wire harness for simple connection. If you aren't sure which wires do what, you can test the new sokcet by installing a bulb and connecting leads to a 12V battery to verify which is the tail and which is the brake. You can check the wiring on your scooter from a wiring diagram or using a test light or multimeter to see which wire gets 12V when you apply the brake and which gets 12V when the parking lights are on. All 3 of my scooters have used green for ground, geen with a yellow stripe for the brake light, and the color of the tail light wire has varied.
