Tail light housing anomaly - or is it?

[FrostedFlake]

When I owned my 2000 Girly, one of the three bolts which secure the tail light housing to the body of the bike broke.  The bolts are actually two threaded pieces fused together by a piece of rubber which allows the housing to jiggle a bit when needed.  One end goes through the tail light, the other goes into the body, with the rubber bumper in between.  Here's a schematic showing what I'm talking about - part #4 -
http://www.bikebandit.com/showschematic/m17662sch569785

Anyway, on the 2000, what broke was actually the rubber middle piece, not either metal threaded end.  It was the top bolt, which caused my tail light to wag around like one of the old bobble-head dogs people used to set in the back windshield of their cars.  I simply replaced it with a solid bolt slipped through a piece of rubber fuel line, leaving it just a tad loose.  Wrote it off as an older bike I had bought used, figured it was just a freak deal.

Fast forward to my '06.  Yesterday, my buddy advised me that my light was bobbing as I went down the road.  Sure enough, same thing.  I took everything apart and it was the same bolt, with the same break in the same rubber part.  Now, I'll admit that I am prone to taking my bike well off the beaten path from time to time, probably causing more bouncing than Triumph intended, but I just thought it was odd that I'd break two bolts on two different bikes in the exact same fashion.  

Has anyone else experienced this?  Should I list this obvious piece of junk in the "For Sale" section?   :P

[doobie]

Had the same thing happen on my 06 tiger a long way from home used super glue still hangin in there 6 months later

[twentyfiftyoil]

Same on me 05, had a spare second hand one off ebay so took the parts of that.

[walker]

yeah - I ended up buying some small washers, a nylon spacer (thick walled plastic tube) a long enough cap screw, and a nylon lock nut.

replaced all 3 with the hex socket cap screws, spacers, washers and locking nut.

won't ever be a problem again. And it doesn't vibrate enough to blow a bulb, and, if it does, there are 2 of them in the housing, so you only lose one of the 2....

[atokad]

Wow - shocked that I am not the only one that this happened to. Hmmm.....Hinckley's, guess I shouldn't be shocked.

I was going to write up my "fix-it" thread when this happened but I thought it would apply to so few people, I didn't bother.

2006 - exact problem - other rider said "hey, is your tailight supposed to be that loose or maybe it is rubber mounted?" Well it was hanging down like it needed some Viagra or something.  :P

When I got the thing apart and saw what it was my solution was to wrap some electrical shrinkwrap around the center "rubber" section that had cracked in half.  I had to use just enough to overlap the ends so that when I applied the heat it shrank over the ends "pulling" the two threaded halves together.  That and a little silicone caulk added to the cracked section seemed to have fixed it just fine.

Quirky little nuisance for sure!

OK - so now the Viagra joke since I referenced it and rubber parts!


Yeah, so I got home the other day and found a free sample of Viagra in my mailbox.  

I thought, what the heck, who sent me that? I don't need no stinking Viagra.

So I flushed it down the toilet.

(long pause as your friends will ALL tell you you are nutts, should've given it to me,,,etc etc)

And NOW, my toilet lid won't stay down!!  

[Sin_Tiger]