Aftermarket rear turn signal replacement

[disco51]

Doing some minor changes to the R65 to give it a more updated look IMHO.
Not knowing jack about electrics or what I was getting into, I went ahead and bought a dual filament style (3-wire) turn signal for $25.  Seeing that I have 2 wires to plug into, I'm guessing I should just cap the third wire for the small running filament.  Would that be the recommended way to handle this to try out these turn signals?  Don't think I need the running light on the turn signals and not sure where I could plug them in - the tail light running light?
Thanks and sorry ahead of time for the likely simple and bone headed electrical question.

[montmil]

I imagine your 3-wire aftermarket signal has a ground wire and two 12v leads for each filament.

No reason you could not have both filaments active; additional rear lighting on your bike will increase your safety quotient.

Determine the lead for the existing tail light and extend that for the rear running lights power source. Same plan for the brake lights -the brake light should be the brighter of the two when it ignites.

Put your Mk-1 eyeball to the bike's existing tail, brake and turn signal wires and wire 'em into the new assemblies so it's all same-all same.

Do you have a Haynes or Clymer shop manual? Often helpful but each has the occasional faux pas in their various wiring diagrams. There's an R65 Owners Manual in the FAQs section, too. It may be for 1981> but it'll be close.

[disco51]

OK. Let me see if I got this. So, I can plug the less bright filament from the turn signal into the running light on the brake wire. This will give me 3 wires (2 turn signal low filament wires and 1 brake light low filament) into the running light for the brake light coming from the power source. Does this sound right?  Again, excuse the lack of proper electrical terms.

[Barry]

This will be a bit of a mystery to Brit members (and maybe others) as we are not permitted to use indicators as running lights. I like the idea. If that's what you decide to do, adding another dimension to a motorcycle must help you to get noticed. I read somewhere that a triangular arrangement of lights is the thing to have.

On the dual filaments, assuming they are something similar to the typical 5/21W lamps, logically the 5w filament has to be the running light so that the 21W filament gets noticed as the direction indicator. The 21W filament is usually not just 4 times brighter than the 5W it's at least 10 times brighter so contrast shouldn't be a problem. That comes at the expense of filament life as the 21W will last typically only 1/4 of the hours compared to the 5W. That's because in stop lamp or indicator operation the 21W filaments are not designed for continuous use. They are effectively voltage over run to achieve a high lumen output. I assume having them both on together for any length of time would reduce the life even further.

Anyway taking all that into account I'd wire the low filaments to come on with the tail light and the high filaments to the existing indicator wiring.