by StephG

For a bit over a year, we had those Harley turn/brake modules on our Softails. Those are the ones that turn your normal rear turn signals into brake lights as well as turn signals.

My only objection to those, was when we're riding at night, which we seem to do a lot, all you have is that tiny brake light behind you for a car to see as well as what little reflective stuff you might be wearing, until you hit your brake lights. You are nigh invisible to dumbasses coming up from behind, especially the drunk ones, at 100 mph.

Well, I was looking through the Kuryakyn web site, and saw that they were selling a similar module that also makes the turn signals into running lights. Kinda like the Badlander module, except it's plug and play for 2000-up Softails, 99-up Sporties, and 96-up everything else. No wire stripping. Even has a load equalizer that comes with it (and it's needed for the turn signals, even stock ones).

So I took the seats off the Softails, unplugged the Harley module and had the Kuryakyn one tucked in there on both bikes in 5 minutes. Including the time it took to take the seats off and put them back on.

And it works just fine. After over a year, they've been totally trouble free. Relatively cheap too: $39.95 or something like that. Legally you need red lenses though, if you don't already have those and care about legal. Those cost under $10 from Custom Chrome, if I remember correctly.

Part number 4864.

Now, Kuryakyn has a solder in model available for the 1999> Softails, 1988> Sportsters and 1995> everything else. However, after going through a couple of these, I found that for our 1998 Sporster, it was better to get the ones made for the Twin Cam bikes [I think the subcontractor that makes them tests the ones with the plugs, but might not be as meticulous with the open soldered leads, since I tried the two with the soldered leads, both defective], cut the plugs off, strip the wires and hook it up that way. The black leads all can go to any other black wire [ground], the red and blue leads go to the corresponding red and blue wires on the taillight, the purple lead to the right purple wire in the turn signal, the brown lead goes to the left purple wire for the left turn signal.