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Electrical - Flash the High Beam with the Horn or Turn Off the Headlight When Starting or Both. | |
| My thoughts on why do this. The headlight puts a drain on the battery, especially now that you have to wait for the check engine light to go off. So why not turn it off when starting the motor? Put all of the battery power to its' intended use.
I've had several folks write me and take exception to flashing the headlight when you hit the horn. "SkinnyJim" said: "A flash from no light or low beam to high beam is an understood giving of right-of-way. Have you never given a truck "the lights" to advise him it is ok to change lanes in front of you? Or how about at an intersection the car facing you indicates a left turn and you give him the "the lights" to say go ahead? I think this is a very dangerous bit of info you are offering." .. And he is 100% correct. And truthfully I had mixed emotions about doing it for the very reasons he stated. But I never flash my lights when on the bike and give the right of way up. I did it because of the proliferation of fricken stereos and cell phones being used almost always with the windows up. Drivers just do not hear the horn. Then one day I had a kid pull out in front of me, I hit my 112db horns and he didn't even twitch! When I caught him at a light I found out why.... Windows up, stereo blasting! I figure too if I am using the horn things have gone past the point of safe riding and I am now in avoid or escape riding. When in that mode I'd like the other driver to know I exist so hopefully they will turn faster, accelerate whatever. So I figured if I could switch the headlight from low to high when I hit the horn I had a better chance of the other driver noticing me. | |
| FIRST - the connector numbers, pin numbers, and wire colors are correct for a '99 FLHT, CHECK your manual to insure you know what connectors, pin numbers, and wire colors you need to deal with! | |
Then before you cut or splice check your voltage on the wires you think you have identified. The safety pins showed here are an easy way to get a multimeter lead inside a connector - just make sure you don't cross them, and that when you expect voltage to be on that particular wire you have the ignition on and the switch in the right position. ![]() | |
The relays I used were stock HD (p/n 31504-91a), you can use any 12vdc relay you want, I figured this way there is always a spare on hand - just disconnect, hook the low beam wire together (pins 30 and 87a) and use the relay. | |
| This is really easy to do on the geezer glides cause the fairing gives you easy access and provides room for the relays. Road King owners will have to find a spot under the seat or maybe under the left side cover. Other models will have to get very creative. | |
| So lets start with the Starter circuit. Looking at the top wiring diagram it's a pretty clear cut diagram. The lower diagram shows how to interupt the Low beam voltage with a relay I'll call K-2. When the starter button is pressed, the voltage energizes (turns on) the relay and the upper set of switch contacts break and remove the voltage from the headlight. Because I use the deenergized contacts to allow the headlight voltage to go to the headlight, even if the relay were to go bad - all that would happen is that the headlight would stay on when you start the motor. | |
| I am calling the new relay K-1, in this diagram, just to reduce the confusion.
Basically the same concept. Hit the horn button and the relay energizes, which switches the voltage to the high beam light. Release the horn button and the relay deenergizes and the voltage goes back to the low beam light. If the High/Low switch is in high beam when the horn button is pressed - nothing happens to the light. You could get a little creative with another relay if you wanted to and make it switch back to low when in high beam - I just didn't feel it was worth the trouble to be honest. | |
| I put the two circuits together here to make it easier to do both if you are so inclined. If either one of the relays go bad - everything works normally. And as I said, if you need the relay for something else, just hook the wires connected to pins 30 and 87a to each other to bypass the relay. | |
And here is the relay bank behind my fairing. The one on the far left is for my driving lights. As you can see I label the new relays, in point of fact I put the new wiring diagram in the fairing just incase someone other than me works on the bike someday. ![]() | |