Joe burned out dairyman introduction and electric question

In our younger days. my wife and I toured Yellowstone Park and the Olympics in Montreal (1975) on a Yamaha RD350. Enter a dairy farm and four Sons and the Yamaha left! Now, close to a half a century later the cows are gone and with two replaced knees I bought a Silverwing. After some research I settled on the Silverwing for less weight and easy and off. However, my knees just were not strong enough and my wife said if she was riding with me I had to have a TRIKE. Being a " love to build it "guy I built one. It is mostly done and if I do say so myself it is looking nice. Now the question; can I add .65 amps of current from a LED light system to the scooters present circuit? The set I am looking at is a full turn, tail, brake set. I found a five wire connecter going to the tail lights. I have not tested them yet and I do not have a wiring diagram. I assume one wire is the ground, a rt turn,a lt turn, brake, and a tail going to each side. That is five wires. The big question is, the scooter lights have a 10 amp fuse, will I overload the circuit? Any help will be much appreciated! Joe

Hello Joe. Welcome to the forum.

Not that I know that much about electrics but I think that if you are replacing the incandescent rear lights with LED’s (which draw less current) then you’ll be okay with that OEM fuse. But you could also change that to a 15 amp fuse.

Do be aware that LED’s wont work in the front running/turn signal lights though. Some how Honda has figured out how to make those single filament front bulbs function as low voltage running lights and then, for reasons yet to be explained, a miracle happens and those same single filament bulbs work on 12 volts as turn signals.

Also, LED bulbs don’t work well in the headlights because the bulb reflector isn’t compatible with the focal point of an LED bulb.

And when you wire up the brake lights for LED’s you’ll have to add a load resistor to each side to stop them from hyper flashing.

You might also consider changing the rear turn signals to dual filament sockets, use red 1157 LED’s, and wire the running light circuit to them as well as the turn signals.

Use the Search function to find several previous discussions about LED’s. And yeah, there is a bit of a learning curve using that Search window. Well, sometime more than “a bit”.

Welcome aboard the board, Yamaha RD350 shades of my past and like the family cast the biggest shadow. As Jim said that search box is a good go to, just be patient and sort through it

Welcome aboard the board Joe.  Short answer is ... go ahead and add the lamps.  Your power draw won't hurt a thing if you do it right.  

That is to say, I think there are some extra empty spots in the current fuse boxes.  You can direct wire to them and no one will be the wiser.  The easiest way is to wire direct to battery with an in-line fuse.  I personally don't like this approach and favour a direct to fuse box approach.

Welcome Joe to the BEST SWing forum on the net. Wasn't the RD350 orange, if I remember right? I had a 77 RD400 that I bought in late 78 when the 79's were coming out. It was blue. It never had gas or oil in it and the speedo still read 0 miles. My wife wasn't all that happy that I bought it but did go for rides with me on it.

To Dale N.; My 1973 Yamaha RD350 was dark red. The last son working my way through college on the family farm. The Dealer in Eau Claire Wi. had a sale. New RD350s for $800! Having worked the farm my whole life to date with no money in my pockets I asked Dad about it. Can you imagine what I all felt when Dad gave me $400 said he would give me the rest when the next Milk Check come! I drove to the Dealer with the old Chevy farm truck thinking i was going to just put money down to hold the bike. I actually went home that day with the bike in the back of the truck and me as high as a kite! Dad has been gone now 25 years but I am almost crying as i'm writing this. Good memories of someone who meant so much to me. As for the second $400 the dealer just said ' I will put it on account and bring it when you get it". Can you imagine that happening these days? There were a lot of good things in "the good old days.

Hi Joe, I had a friend who had an RD350 that was orange. Not sure what year it was tho. Yup! The good old days were sure different than they are today. A persons word meant something back then.
When I picked up my RD400 the service tech was on it taking it for a test ride to make sure everything was up to snuff. When I went to get it it had 6 tenths of a mile on it. I went back in and told the salesman that it was supposed to be a NEW bike. He said it is. I said B.S. because it's got 6 tenths of a mile on it. I had been screwing around with him since I first went in there so he knew my warped sense of humor. He laughed and told me to get the hell out of there.
That was a great little bike too!! And my wife stayed married to me also which was nice. We had lots of rides on it.She's been gone for 8 years now but sometimes I can feel her on the back of my SWing. I ask if she's enjoying the ride and have never gotten hit upside the head so I guess she still likes riding with me.

Those 350's bring back a lot of memories. I had a 1967 YR1 350 Yamaha which was what the 350's were before they became RD's. My wife and I really enjoyed that bike. This was a period when America wasn't smitten by the "it's got to be as big as a land yacht to be considered a real motorcycle". And she still rides with me.....
Welcome Joe

Talking of Salesmen , and yes sorry its not a Swing....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEd5YhLAfyE

This the wiring layout for the tail lights.

The Swing fuses are split; Fuse B does horn/meter/brake/tail (10A) and Fuse C does the blinkers (10A). Of those two, the Fuse C maximum draw would be the lowest at 2 x 21W = 3.5A, so would be the better one to power any additional lights.