Front signal light covers

Excuse me if this is in the wrong section.

A bird hit my left front signal light cover, or I hit the bird, and knocked it off. The retaining strap was not connected to the bike? I inspected the right signal light cover and the same thing. Is this a warranty issue? The cover is all scratched and chipped from it's ride down the road and the electical connections had to be taped in.

Thanks

The Right Light Housing.




The Left light housing

Warranty? I doubt it but some dealers have replaced burnt out bulbs before... I doubt they'll shell out for mirror covers. The straps don't zip-tie even though that's what they look like they should do, they just go into a slot and sometimes they work out of there.

Did the bird have insurance?

400 miles after having my new '08 I hit a turkey buzzard in Oklahoma and the wings knocked off my mirrors. Not exactly relevant but I like telling that story.

Mellow said:

Did the bird have insurance?

Click to expand...

Nah they just ticketed and let him go since he was no longer a flight risk

Doubt they'll consider it warranty but you don't know if you don't ask.

You can take it back to the dealer you bought it from and try, but I doubt it .. when I bought my 2010, I popped off both mirror covers to verify they were secure. The sales guy kinda freaked, since he didn't know really anything about the ST.

Just where is that strap supposed to be connected? At the moment it's just connected to the housing. If I remember right my ST1100 had a wire connector and the mirror and the housing was one piece? The wire was connected to the bike. Isn't this considered faulty workmanship? The strap is supposed to be connected to the bike isn't it?

There is a round hole with a slot on the bike side.
Push the ty-rap head into the hole and the web of the strap into the slot.

On the mirror side it's screwed on thru a hole in the strap.

Lousy design imop. Nothing really to keep it in the slot if it was ever put there in the 1st place.

Delboy said:

Just where is that strap supposed to be connected? At the moment it's just connected to the housing. If I remember right my ST1100 had a wire connector and the mirror and the housing was one piece? The wire was connected to the bike. Isn't this considered faulty workmanship? The strap is supposed to be connected to the bike isn't it?

Click to expand...

I don't have the final pic but the strap slides into that vertical slot.

Joe
Is the bottom spring clip supposed to have a bailing wire around it like the other ones?

[QUOTE

I don't have the final pic but the strap slides into that vertical slot.[/QUOTE]

Thank you for that. As you can see...the straps were never placed in there!

st1300r said:

There is a round hole with a slot on the bike side.
Push the ty-rap head into the hole and the web of the strap into the slot.

On the mirror side it's screwed on thru a hole in the strap.

Lousy design imop. Nothing really to keep it in the slot if it was ever put there in the 1st place.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the reply...you're right, it never was attached to the bike!

Yesterday I went on a long ride on the bike. Visited Lake Louise and Kananaskis country and well as Bragg Creek for coffee.
The trip was around 6 hr and covered roughly 500 km. It was record hot (29C) and very windy at times.
The downside is that the right front signal light assembly parted company with the bike. Retaining strap and all. Gone!
It must have been blasted loose by the wind, near the Morley flats, on the return trip. Replacement is close to $250.00.
This event has given me a chance to examine the retaining strap scheme and thanks to this series of posts I was able to see how it is "attached" to the cowling.
It's really a bogus setup, but now I know how it was designed. In this setup it will make removing the housing, without removing the screw a bit rough on the wiring.
I checked the left side and sure enough it wasn't attached to anything. The PO probably couldn't sort it out either.
Thanks Mellow for your informative post. That really solved the mystery.
Cheers,
Steve

Check out http://www.hondaparts-direct.com/index.htm About $115. A lot less than $250. Is that the shop price?

The two assemblies below include everything you need except lightbulb and taping screws(also available at site).
33400-MCS-305 ! TURN SIGNAL ASSY., R. FR. (12V 21/5W) (COO) $48.95
88111-MCS-G00ZG COVER, R. MIRROR $67.76 -- look up your year to match color (this is for 2007, they're otherwise the same)

PS my retaining strap held even during my lowside and the mirror, and housing was smashed.

You can try. When I had my 04, my cover came off in a wind gust at 70 mph on the highway about a month after I got it. The dealer did not put the holder in the tab like yours. They also did not put on the wire springs on the top two clips. The set up manual tells the tech to put these part on. They did not, so the dealer covered it. The main reason it came off was the lack of those two little springs.

My bike was missing the cover retaining straps. I bought it with 1800 miles not sure if the first owner removed them. I made a "chain"out of zip ties to keep them with the bike if they came off.

I've never had a mirror pop off because of wind. I never lost a mirror even during a lowside wreak, the safety strap held my smashed mirror cover. Sometimes you need to tighten the spring clips by pressing them together with pliers, then mount the mirrors. I've learned to my dismay never to trust dealer work. They have cost me an SMC, rusty axles, rusty final drive gears, panel put on incorrectly, shortcuts in wiring that fail, tires guaranteed to leak, missing fasteners. It's going to take a lot to get me to take my bike back to the dealer here, he'll have to pay me! I'm sure there are some out there, but locally

So If you use the dealer, double check the panels removed and that you got all the fasteners in place.

Mellow said:

The straps don't zip-tie even though that's what they look like they should do, they just go into a slot and sometimes they work out of there.

Click to expand...

The first time I removed a mirror cover the large end of the strap was working its way out of the hole as well. The zip-tie turns sideways in its channel facilitating this.


Here is my attempt at hopefully preventing them from working out. I cut a T-slot in the bottom of the channel just large enough for the zip-tie to fit through lying flat. This is to hopefully keep it from turning sideways and riding up to the round hole where it can escape from.


Then I routed the zip-tie through the slot.


Then I made sure that both mirror cover lamp wiring harnesses were routed through the hole above the zip-tie to fill-in the hole as much as possible. It was very quick and simple to do, cost me nothing and hopefully this will keep the zip-tie where it needs to be to do its job if the mirror cover ever seeks freedom.