Good morning everyone,

Over the past few months I changed a lot of parts on bike blah blah blah, well one of the things I had taken apart was the head light. Now my bike is back together and everything works great except for the headlight.

At first it worked sometimes (only when the headlight would rattle enough to touch the frame, grounding issue?) Then eventually it just stopped working. I'm not sure what the issue is but its very frustrating as I cant ride my bike past 4:30pm anymore.

The wiring in my headlight bucket is a mess, yesterday I was looking at the wiring and the grounding wire was kind of messed up so I put a new on and when I pushed the headlight in the headlight came on for a second. But then it went off again. So I know the head light works and is not burnt out, the breaker must be fine if my break light works correct? It's weird, sometimes when I'm shoving my headlight back in the bucket and the wires jumble up in the right way then the headlight comes on then goes off if I move anything at all.

My headlight is being mounted with a DK customs headlight mount, I tried putting the stock headlight visor back on yesterday to see that did anything which it didn't.

Lastly - I've really been wanting to go to an aftermarket black headlight, but from my understanding there is no where to hide all this wiring mess. I have no where else to put it. Is there really not an after market headlight where I cant put all these wires in?

Here are some pictures of the headlight/wiring...

I unplugged the back connectors because it was going out to nothing...





















You can see the headlight not working here:



Another thing to add, a few weeks ago when the light was king of working I was trying to ground the headlight by just running a wire from the headlight bolt to the frame. It would spark a little when I moved the wire, I dont know if that did any damage. I dont think it did because the light came on yesterday.

 

that is a mess,

check your fuses fuses
*refer to owners manual if your fuse sticker is mia:
https://www.harley-davidson.com/cont...rs-manual.html

try some electric contact cleaner on the connections, then some dielectric grease once cleaned. if that's not your cause, then at least we know your connections are cleaned up and semi corrosion retardant.

trace all wires and grounds. look for pinched badness.

sit down and have a good, manly cry

 

electric issue usually cannot detect by visual. A multimeter is required. No need a hundred-bulk multimeter , a one less than $10 is enough.


two things to checks first
1) is the bulb burned?
2) is the bulb connector has 12V output?

once you got one, post the model, someone should be able to tell you how to use it to check these two items.

 

test high beam as well. the low can go out , but the high may still work. if so... may be bad bulb like mentioned above

 

Thanks for responses guys. I dont think my year has fuses, instead it has circit breakers. I dont think that's the issue because my taillight works and my headlight comes on sometimes?

I've had some time to think about this headlight situation. Clearly based on the suggestions above it needs to be re-wired. I want to do this right way and not some quick fix. This brings up a few more questions though.

1) Firstly I want to make this wiring as simple as possible with out tearing the bike apart. I don't have a speedo or front turn signals, will this help eliminate some of the wiring?

2) I really want an after market headlight, in gloss black. I'm assuming it will be bottom mount (which is better I think). The problem I understand with this is there is no where to hide all the wires in the headlight bucket, are there really no aftermarket headlight that you can hide the wires in the bucket?. I don't have much space under the tank and I'm really into the "clean look" when it comes to my bike so less visible wires to me is the best option. There has to be a way to go about achieving this.

3) I have been pondering changing my handle bars, my current ones are internally wired and if I get new handle bars I would like to wire them internally as well. I'm thinking if I want to do this big re-wire this would be a good time to do the handle bars as well.

4) Is there a way to get rid of all these male/female connectors? Why are they needed?

5) Any more thoughts or opinions on this subject is welcomed!

 

Ive had a lot of problems with bulb filaments over the years, you turn the bulb one way and it works great, you turn it another way and the filament comes away from the electrical post in the bulb. Try another bulb in the socket or else get a cheap test light from Harbor Freight. One slot in your connector is ground so you would need an ohm meter to test that, ground the alligator clip to your bike then turn ignition on and probe the headlight socket with the other end on high and low beam. That should give you an indication of your ground wire and the headlight filament. Try the test light on your battery first so you can see how bright it is.

 

I have been doing a lot of research the past few days thinking what direction I want to go in. The OEM headlight sucks, offers no light, and I prefer the look of the headlight without the eyebrow on it.

This is what I'm thinking of doing

I'm going to get this headlight, its black and is pretty much what I'm looking for:

http://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/d...ount-headlight

Then I'm going to replace the H4 bulb it comes with this LED drop in replacement from DK Customs:

http://www.dkcustomproducts.com/Prem...-H4-HL-LED.htm

This new setup will provide much better light out on the road (better safety) and look nice as well. The tricky part is going to be figuring out how to minimize my current wiring situation. I'm hoping I don't have to drill into the new headlight, we'll see what happens. I'm hoping to eliminate all the connectors and other stuff I dont need (is this a bad idea?)

I'm going to need some help and direction on this, I'm planning to continue posting in this thread with updates and questions. If anyone has any comments or suggestion please feel free to let me know!

 

Quick questions -


What should I do with this old turn signal flasher when I do the rewire? Was this only in relation to the front turn signals (which I dont have) or does it affect the rear signals also? It's big and I'm not sure where it could go, I would like to get rid of it or replace with some smaller and newer....