Triumph/TR3A Projects:Turn signal / flasher lens replacement

The Triumph TR3/TR3A has some horribly designed turn signal lamps. It's near impossible to replace the lens in these things. I've finally found a somewhat reasonable solution:
  1. Use a lightly greased flathead screwdriver to help pull the rubber lip over the rim.
  2. Use shims under the rubber body to push it forward towards the lens.
The second part is crucial to a relatively easy install. Try it both ways if you don't believe me. :)

For a simple makeshift shim, I had some carb gaskets lying around from a recent gasket replacement, so I tore two of them in half and slid them underneath each side of the flasher lamp rubber body. Otherwise there's no way to pull the rubber forward over the lens rim.

While applying steady (and quite a bit of) pressure on the lens rim, run a screwdriver around between the rim and the rubber body to get it to wrap over. When you're done, run your finger around the outside of the body pulling forward to make sure it's completely wrapped over the lip of the rim, then be sure to clean off excess grease. Finally, make sure you can rotate the lens/rim around to ensure that there are no weak spots where the rubber doesn't quite hug the rim..

The lens, rim and flasher body The tools.
A small flathead, some grease and some shims.
Shimming the rubber body forward Pulling the lip of the body
over the rim (actually requires two hands)
Making sure the body is snug over the rim.
Album created by album a script written by David Madison on Fri Jan 31 15:29:12 2020