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Progress on hella headlights
- Thread starter snrusnak
- Start date
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mrlogix
Well-known member
a set should be a male connector housing and a female connector housing with all the pins and accessories to assemble a complete connector. Best to call and ask though.
Yeah 10-4 that's what I thought as well. I just need two male connectors. I'm not spending $40+ dollars for those that's a rip, I'll just get some other connectors from a local store or use something I have laying around.
I got the fuse box apart today and here are some pics. The red/black wire is the power to the fuse for the headlight circuit. The dual blue wires are the power to the high beam switch and the oem low beam.
On the headlight connector, the white(appears yellow in the pic) is the oem high beam and the blue is the oem low beam. My plan is to keep the blue as one of the low beams, use the white as the high beam shutter, and run a new wire from the blue wire that powers the high beam switch to the headlight harness (orange wire). I will pull out the orange wire and tape it up as it's not used anyway.
Does anyone know where I can buy new metal terminals for the headlight connector and/or the fuse box?
Also "fabricated" (using that term VERY loosely at this point lol) these wire harness holders out of some pipe hanger strapping to replace the original ones. I needed to move the harness back about 1/2" to clear the plug for the new lights.
I got the fuse box apart today and here are some pics. The red/black wire is the power to the fuse for the headlight circuit. The dual blue wires are the power to the high beam switch and the oem low beam.
On the headlight connector, the white(appears yellow in the pic) is the oem high beam and the blue is the oem low beam. My plan is to keep the blue as one of the low beams, use the white as the high beam shutter, and run a new wire from the blue wire that powers the high beam switch to the headlight harness (orange wire). I will pull out the orange wire and tape it up as it's not used anyway.
Does anyone know where I can buy new metal terminals for the headlight connector and/or the fuse box?
Also "fabricated" (using that term VERY loosely at this point lol) these wire harness holders out of some pipe hanger strapping to replace the original ones. I needed to move the harness back about 1/2" to clear the plug for the new lights.
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Well found that a HD dealer about 30 minutes away had the terminal pins and they were the only place I could find them. Went out there and they only had the male pins. Ordered the females but will take 7-10 days. Oh well. I will do what I can and have it all ready just to finish up those few terminals next weekend. I also ordered some cheaper plastic connectors on amazon for like $7 for a set of 5 and they appear like they MIGHT fit the connectors for the shutters. If they don't I'll just repin them and won't use the connectors that came with the shutters...
On a side note...I tried radio shack first for the terminal pins, and man.....how is that place still in business???? They hardly had anything in there and the lights weren't even on lol. It's crazy.
On a side note...I tried radio shack first for the terminal pins, and man.....how is that place still in business???? They hardly had anything in there and the lights weren't even on lol. It's crazy.
I can't believe this but the connectors I bought on amazon (5 sets for $7) actually are the right ones for the high beam shutters. I'm glad they work out!
I just need to get the other pins from HD in a week or so. Will do all the wiring I can this weekend and finish up that last connector when those pins come in. I might post a little more clear info when I'm done on how it's wired up with a diagram or something in case anyone tries to do a similar headlight swap.
I just need to get the other pins from HD in a week or so. Will do all the wiring I can this weekend and finish up that last connector when those pins come in. I might post a little more clear info when I'm done on how it's wired up with a diagram or something in case anyone tries to do a similar headlight swap.
mrlogix
Well-known member
out focking standing
Does anyone have a spare white plastic headlight connector? The part that is on the light side, not the main harness side. It would be male(plastic) or female(metal terminals). Not sure the correct nomenclature. I discovered the ground pin in mine is melted to the plastic. Must have got hot at one time when I had bad connections at the lights. I could reuse as is and splice my wires to the ground with heat shrink (I can't get the metal terminal out due to being melted together), but I'd much rather replace it. I just need the plastic connector. Let me know if you have one, thanks!
mrlogix
Well-known member
send a PM to UMDTerp, or go to Pinwallcycles.com
Finally got this done enough that I can ride again. The harley dealer gave me the wrong part number for the female terminal pins for the connectors so I couldn't repin everything. Had to use metal butt crimp connectors and heat shrink. And the heat shrink I bought was supposed to have adhesive but didn't. So it's still decently put together but not what I want. I will eventually rebuild the headlight harness how I want it, but I needed the bike rideable by next week as I'm taking it into the Ozarks.
One concern I have is that the plastic headlight connector is VERY hot. I let the bike run for about 20 minutes and even though it was blazin' hot (almost too hot to grab) there were no issues as far as melting. The original ground terminal was actually somewhat melted in the connector (on the stock headlight setup), so I can understand this being "normal". Does anyone know if their connector gets this hot after ~5-10 minutes of the lights being on? (both lights). I'm thinking I can add a bigger ground or a separate ground to the frame just for the headlights to hopefully fix this issue, as both lights power is grounded to the same single wire.
The light output appears to be good, on low and high beam. I haven't ridden yet though (battery is dead). Hoping to ride an hour or so in the morning.
The pics probably suck as they are from my $50 cell phone...
Low
High (two pics)
One concern I have is that the plastic headlight connector is VERY hot. I let the bike run for about 20 minutes and even though it was blazin' hot (almost too hot to grab) there were no issues as far as melting. The original ground terminal was actually somewhat melted in the connector (on the stock headlight setup), so I can understand this being "normal". Does anyone know if their connector gets this hot after ~5-10 minutes of the lights being on? (both lights). I'm thinking I can add a bigger ground or a separate ground to the frame just for the headlights to hopefully fix this issue, as both lights power is grounded to the same single wire.
The light output appears to be good, on low and high beam. I haven't ridden yet though (battery is dead). Hoping to ride an hour or so in the morning.
The pics probably suck as they are from my $50 cell phone...
Low
High (two pics)
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I slept on this and thought on it some more and I'm pretty sure the ground is the issue. Seeing as how the stock setup melted the ground terminal in the connector and I'm drawing now 20 more watts it makes sense. I'm going to test this theory by just temporary hooking a large gauge ground straight to the battery to see if it doesn't heat up the connector. If it's all good that way I'll run a new permanent ground wire. For next week's riding, though, I'm just going to unplug one of the lights.
Just did an hour ride and miraculously didn't get wet (so much rain coming up through TX). I had unplugged one light and the harness never got hot. So looks like I just need to fix the undersized ground issue. I may wire it up so that only one low beam is on for low beams and both low beams plus the high beam shutters are on for high beams. That way there's less draw on the system during low beam operation. But I need to ride at night with one and two low beams to compare output to see how good lighting is.
I forgot to mention also, I had bought the new headlight harness from Harley due to the original having the ground terminal melted into it and the damn terminal pins were only half way crimped. And where the ground was spliced to two grounds the wire was just twisted together with heat shrink tubing that wasn't even fully shrunk/sealed. The original harness had been soldered and properly heat shrunk. That really pissed me off, just made me wonder how many other crappy QC items were on the bike. I'd never known either if I hadn't taken it all apart.
Oh, and it felt really good to be on the bike after essentially not riding since the dragon trip of 2014....
I forgot to mention also, I had bought the new headlight harness from Harley due to the original having the ground terminal melted into it and the damn terminal pins were only half way crimped. And where the ground was spliced to two grounds the wire was just twisted together with heat shrink tubing that wasn't even fully shrunk/sealed. The original harness had been soldered and properly heat shrunk. That really pissed me off, just made me wonder how many other crappy QC items were on the bike. I'd never known either if I hadn't taken it all apart.
Oh, and it felt really good to be on the bike after essentially not riding since the dragon trip of 2014....
Cooter
Well-known member
Congrats! looks like a fun project. The first pic was like "WTF is that!?!... OH, your dog..." Haha.
Thanks. I'm going to try to take some half way decent pictures this weekend when I'm up in the mountains. My rear tire is getting bad and I haven't ridden in over a year so I need to take it easy, but I'm really looking forward to it. Got it loaded up, leave at ~6am.
