Running lights burning out

[Erci]

Background:
Converted the bike to streetfighter and the original front running lights / turn signals are now hard-mounted to the new headlight brackets (no rubber piece to suspend them from impacts and vibration).
I cut original connectors out and replaced them with bullet connectors, but all wires are connected in the same order.. no color mixing.

Problem:
Ruinning light filament on the right side burned out after about 5 hours of use. I replaced it with a generic 7443 bulb. It burned out once again after about 5 hours. I then took the OEM bulb out of left side, put it in right side and put a new generic bulb in left side. Right side burned out once again after about 5 hours of use AND the left side now burned out as well. Blinker filaments are still working.. only running filaments burning out.

Question:
What do you think is causing this? Could it be the added shock and vibration from hard mounting OEM signals to headlight brackets?
Or do I have a short in the system? How would you troubleshoot this?

 

[deeptekkie]

I doubt it's a short. I think that you are probably spot-on about the vibration maybe. (You are not handling the bulbs with your bare fingers are you? As you probably already know, on hot bulbs this will dramatically shorten their lifespan)

 

[Erci]

I doubt it's a short. I think that you are probably spot-on about the vibration maybe. (You are not handling the bulbs with your bare fingers are you? As you probably already know, on hot bulbs this will dramatically shorten their lifespan)

I wiped the bulbs with paper towel / rubbing alcohol and plugged them in holding on to them with the same paper towel.

If it IS vibration, could LED bulbs help with this?

 

[deeptekkie]

They may be able to stand the vibration better than a bulb with a filament. (I am not sure about this) The problem with LED's is that they grow dimmer with time, (especially in constant service).

 

[RJ2112]

I too doubt that it's a short in the classic sense..... the only real change you've made electrically is to shorten the wires going to the bulbs, and where the ground connection is made. It's not a good idea to make electricity pass through your steering bearings to make a complete circuit -- hopefully, you passed the negative connection all the way back to the main frame or directly to the battery....

With shorter wires, will come slightly higher current flow as there is less resistance in the path. Vibration may play a part as well, but I'd have to think the bulbs are now running hotter than they were in the OEM configuration.

Is there any chance you reversed the filaments? Maybe you are running the turn signal elements as your running lights? They would be higher wattage, and not intended to run 100% of the time.....

 

[Erci]

I'll take a look at the wires again, but I'm fairly certain I matched colors as they were set up originally. I didn't shorten the wires either.. just cut off stock connectors and replaced with bullet-types.
Ground should not have changed.. I'm using same ground wires as in OEM setup.
I did notice that when I had the blinker on on the left, right side running light would dim slightly. Same goes for right side. Do stock bikes do this as well? Could this be pointing to bad ground (even though I didn't really change that).

 

[tomari]

moisture??

 

[Erci]

moisture??

Nope. Have not ridden in the rain once since I've modified the bike.

 

[Erci]

Wiring looked good, so I ended up getting aftermarket indicators with flexible stalks
Got few hours on them and so far they haven't exploded, but I'm not ready to say "case closed" just yet.