Marker Lights
By The Man In Black (Tracy Lauricella)
Nov, 1998

Arlen Ness lights pictured:

I recently installed some rear marker lights for my Valk, and I really like the way they turned out. I'd removed my passenger seats & sissy bar uprights a while ago, so I couldn't use any marker lights that mounted on the sissy bar. I couldn't install anything too wide, either, as I have the Honda sidebags, and they don't leave a lot of room between the fender rails and the bags.

I'd been admiring the looks of the Arlen Ness marker lights, but they were WAY too expensive for what they were. (They want about a hundred bucks for the set pictured here.) I found a set that looks IDENTICAL to these at my local Harley Shop. They were $22.95 for the pair. :)

I mounted them, not horizontally- sticking out from the sides of the bike, like they were designed to, but vertically (kind of like in the picture.) I bolted them to the fender rails, with the flat side down, and the light at an upward angle pointed toward the rear. They work well, because although they are not very high up (the fender rails are only a few inches higher than the rear light after all) they angle such that the light is pointed up higher, and is thus very visible to the cars behind me.

These lights have two bulbs- a dim one and a bright one. The dim one wires into your taillight, and the bright one wires into your brake light. This way they function as rear running lights, as well as auxiliary brake lights. The setup was kind of nice in that each bulb only uses one wire each- the ground is handled through the mounting bolts.

FYI, the rear running light and brake light wires are the brown wire and the green/yellow wire in the taillight harness. (I forget which is which..)

Anyway, I'm happy because I now have some awesome looking marker lights, better rear visibility for both driving and braking, and I did it a hell of a lot cheaper than ordering lights through Arlen Ness!

--TMIB