Tail light exploded!

[aaron7]

So, found out why my lights went dead.

First, the headlight switch is flaky. Wiggled it around and the headlight comes on and off. Going to have to figure that one out.

Second, took the cover off my tail light and it was full of white powderish residue and glass! It must have exploded! haha

Wasn't a cheap bulb either. It was a Stanley. It says 1154 6V 17/5.3W 6V 21/3CP on it. Is that the right wattage or too low?

Now to find out why it blew like that. Maybe my regulator is bad?

[Spokes]

Aaron

The bulb in the tail light is good. I have used the same without a problem.

Strange that the light bulb burst. Normally they just burn out..but to explode is a mystery. The fuse did not blow? What size fuse do you have?

It will be interesting to see the condition of the handlebar switch.

Weird.

[aaron7]

There is no fuse on this bike, and it appears factory that way as the original harness is intact with no cuts in the tape! It's an early harness, I think the date stamp was 61.

[Spokes]

OK something is goofy. You have a 1961 harness in your 64 CA95 with no fuse....

I have a nice 1965 CA95 harness that is right for your bike. It is yours if you want to install it. It has the rectifier on it as well.

No fuse=danger burnt wires ahead!

[aaron7]

Well I built the bike from scratch. I got the harness from ebay.

Besides that part the harness is fine. Really don't want to pull it out again!

[Brewster]

What the tail lamp blub did sounds like when I put a 12v lamp in a 6v system.
The blub lights good then you see smoke!

[rhodemon]

Is your battery good? The bike has no voltage regulator and relies on a good battery to control the voltage. Without that control in the system, the V's go haywire and burn out all the bulbs in the system in short order.

[aaron7]

Yes, the battery is new. Think I might do the Radio Shack rectifier mod.