Added more lights to the front of the Street Glide

  • October 26, 2016 4:33 PM PDT

    Man at night these Mountain roads are really dark, and the OEM head light bulb seems to be lacking in light production, so I decided to install a set of driving lights on the front end. I found these 3 inch driving lights on Custom Crusings web site. They were on sale, original $220.oo on sale for $140.00 and they look great on line, so I bought a set. When I received them they looked just as good as they did online, and were of high quality. These lights were advertised as "SELF GROUNDING" remember that as it is key. As self grounding the lights only had one wire coming from the lights. I tried to installed the lights on the down tubes, but the front fender seem to block most of the light, so I moved them to the inside of the crash bars at the mid-way mark. I ran the wiring under the tank and into the battery compartment and attached the single wire to the positive post of the battery with a switch in the line. I turned on the switch and man what a difference in light out-put. So I reinstalled the seat and fired up the bike. Shortly after starting the bike smoke started to roll from under the seat. I turned off the bike and removed the seat. All the wire I had just installed was fried! I through the problem was I used to small gage wire, and proceeded to removed all the fried wire. The next day I went to the auto parts store and purchased some 16 gage wire and rewired the lights again. At this point I'm feeling pretty good about the work. I started the bike and guess what........fried the 16 gage wire just like the last time. Here is the lesson to take away from this post......Just because a product states it's "SELF GROUNDING" it really depends on where you mount the product and how well it is grounded when mounted. To be safe and save the same headaches I endured Just go ahead and hard wire a ground wire from the lights to the negitive post of the battery.........as I eventully did. After I did that they work great and no more fried wires.

    Be safe out there

    Night Dragon

     

    • Moderator
    • 19034 posts
    October 27, 2016 5:00 AM PDT

    You also really need a fuse or breaker too. And I would probably go with at least 14ga wire.

     

     

    • Moderator
    • 16825 posts
    October 27, 2016 11:00 AM PDT

    Anytime I mount any electrical component the to front end I always run a ground wire.

    If not your neck bearings are part of the ground.

  • October 27, 2016 1:22 PM PDT

    [blockquote]RexTheRoadDog said:

    You also really need a fuse or breaker too. And I would probably go with at least 14ga wire.

     

    Yep failed to mention I do have a 10Amp fuse in line as well.

     

     

    [/blockquote]

    • Moderator
    • 19034 posts
    October 28, 2016 3:43 AM PDT

    [blockquote]RevBigJohn said:

    Anytime I mount any electrical component the to front end I always run a ground wire.

    If not your neck bearings are part of the ground.

    [/blockquote]

     

    That is Soooo  right Rev!