aftermarket blinkers

[drooker56]

I cannot seem to find the post about blinkers. What do I need to install to get my aftermarket blinkers to blink?

[WMarshy]

After Market Flasher

I replaced my flasher with one from autozone. Our bikes use a three prong flasher because it has a self canceling unit working off one of the poles. If you want to replace it with one at autozone like I did, you lose the self cancel feature. The only flasher they had that works is a two pole unit, if your lucky like me, the guy at the stor let me try every single one before I found the one I needed... If I remember correctly, looking at the poles on the aftermarket one, it had the horizontal (on top) and a vertical pole to the right (?) below the horizontal one. Just match up the number (volts ect) as close as you can and see if they will let you try it b4 you buy... Good luck!

[psycoreefer]

Hey, I'm about to embark on the same mission, so if you find the part number let me know. FYI none of the three pole flashers at autozone will work, I already tried all of the three or four they stock.....

[stevo66]

Blinkers

You might try a load equalizer ..Some of the blinkers nowadays dont have enough of a load to run the relay...We used to put these on customs to get them to work...Just a suggestion Stevo

[DGXSER]

Yep, as Stevo put it, the stock flasher needs the draw of the stock bulbs in order to flash. You either have to induce the load as Stevo suggested, or get an aftermarket flasher and lose the self cancelling feature.

[WMarshy]

I will check the exact part number of the flasher when I get home if that will help anyone.

[fredintoon]

The blinking truth

I cannot seem to find the post about blinkers. What do I need to install to get my aftermarket blinkers to blink?

Hi Don,
your aftermarket blinkers don't blink because they don't draw the 54Watts total power the stock blinker needs to make it work.
What to do, what to do?
Check the aftermarket bulbs' total Wattage. Betcha it's 2 x 22 = 44W. You need 54W.
Option1) Put a 10W bulb in parallel with the blinkers each side to load the stock blinker to 54W then it will blink and the self-canceller will work.
Option 2) Put in any 2-pin electronic blinker. They plug into the 3-way socket either of 2 ways. One way works, one way don't. The electronic blinker has the same blink rate no matter what the load is but kiss the self-cancelling feature goodbye.
I have never gotten a 3-pin automotive blinker to work on my bikes no matter how I connected it. It seems their innards are wired all different.

[crazy steve]

...The only flasher they had that works is a two pole unit...

FYI, the three wire flashers will work but you have to swap two of the wires in the plug. You still lose the self-cancel though. I went through this when I hooked a trailer to mine; it was a PITA to get it all to work. I used one of those electro-mechanical flashers that flash anything from one lamp on up...

'78E original owner

[WMarshy]

FYI, the three wire flashers will work but you have to swap two of the wires in the plug. You still lose the self-cancel though. I went through this when I hooked a trailer to mine; it was a PITA to get it all to work. I used one of those electro-mechanical flashers that flash anything from one lamp on up...

'78E original owner

I was woundering if they (3pole) would have worked by just swapping the two horizontal poles in the plug... Sounds like too much work to me to acheive the same outsome... working flashers and no self cancel...

[cywelchjr]

I was woundering if they (3pole) would have worked by just swapping the two horizontal poles in the plug... Sounds like too much work to me to acheive the same outsome... working flashers and no self cancel...

I'm trying to figure out just how the original worked with the auto cancel, as if we can figure it out maybe we can figure out a simple adapter to give the electronic flasher and still retain the auto cancel.

[psycoreefer]

I've just been playing with my bike and this is what I found.... maybe someone can verify.

The Brown/white wire runs to the blinkers, via the blinker switch, thats the "center" pole of the blinker it flashes on/off when the blinker is on and is dead when its off.

The Tan wire is hot from the fuse box.

The Green/Yellow wire runs to the canceler box. As far as I can tell it blinks along with the lights when the blinker is running. If you ground it with the blinkers on they turn on solid. If you put it to 12v hot with the blinkers on they stop blinking.

I suspect that the canceler counts blinks from the flasher on green/yellow wire and after some number of "flashes" or some distance measured by the speedo reed switch it puts 12v to the green/yellow wire which stops the flasher from blinking.
However I can't really test this, my dad borrowed my battery charger so I can't let it sit and blink till it cancels and my speedo is broken so I can't let it count the distance either. Maybe someone else can hook up a meter and verify that the canceler switches the green/yellow to +12v to stop the relay?

This would explain why the automotive 3 wire flashers don't work, they expect one of the two side poles to be a ground and the canceler doesn't ground it's pole, and the lights are on the other side pole.

Tomorrow I'm going to go to NAPA and see what they have and try to match something up based on my current understanding. If I find something I'll let everyone know.