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Santa Claus surprised my with the Custom Dynamics Latch Lightz, for my 2017 EG Ultra Limited. These provide an LED replacement for the OEM reflector on the side latch of the Touring Saddle bags. I have the CD triple play, and I connected these with the provided plug & play harness before the triple play. As installed, the lights operators at a fairly bright run mode, then blink brightly with the turn signals, and come on at the bright level when the brakes lights come on. This is such a great improvement to side visibility, I’m surprised nobody offered one before. Now that I installed them I’ll give a brief review.
My ratings on a scale 1-10:
Functionality & Quality/Intensity of lights: 10
Installation Ease: 8
Harness Quality: 6. This is because the fine wires and small interface connector are easily damaged...as I did.
Overall, I highly recommend this safety improvement.
As you can see from the following picture, the lens quality and fit is excellent:
Installation was fairly straight forward. You have to remove the existing reflectors and drill through the back of the latch, as well as drill through the back of the saddle bag. This required a single Home Depot trip for drill bits, I didn’t have the needed 5/8 or was it 9/16...whatever...the required size is in the instructions, for drilling the back of the saddle bags. And my/smaller ones were dull. As far as the installation, I have a few recommendations that might help.
- slit the grommet from the center to the outside, to slide the wires in. Otherwise it’s a PITA/impossible to get the terminated wires through the grommet hole. Per the following picture:
- once you get the wires through the grommet, you have to insert the terminated wires into a provided connector. If you have big paws like me, this is a PITA. The wires are probably 24 gauge with correspondingly small terminals, that need to be inserted into the connector until they they snap in place. A very thin punch helps to get them seated. I used the back of a sewing needle...and poked myself pretty good. Per the following picture, the termination side of the terminal goes “up” towards the latch. Also, it’s helpful to align both connectors to get the colors aligned properly...
This is the connector that needs to be disconnected to remove the saddle bag. And as luck has it...I screwed on with my big paws, After everything was installed I had to remove the left bag to install the side cover...that I previously forgot to install. IMHO, this connector is just too feeble for this role. To fix the issue on the side I screwed up, I spliced in a heavier duty waterproof connector set that I had in my inventory. I reordered some to do the other side. Following is the provided connector, then the connector I spliced in place.
Finally, the following is a crappy video I made to show the outcome.
Custom Dynamics Latch Lightz
