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New member FLHR and FXR

Thanks, all, for the warm welcome !
I wasted a day wiring up the very nice taillight I got at amazon.com, "NTHREEAUTO Red LED TailLight Brake Turn Signals Running Light Compatible with Harley Road King, Sportster XL1200C, Fat boy, FXDWG, Electra Glides, Road Glide, Dyna Motorcycle Taillights, Brand: NTHREEAUTO" ($25.99). The fixture looks great, but I had to remove material from the original FXR taillight bracket, where some mounting surfaces stood out too far. Not a problem, my bike wasn't listed as a bolt-on fit, so I expected to make modifications.
The wiring problem I ran into was after I connected a strobe flasher to the brake light wire. It worked perfectly on the Road King, where I have three taillight units flashing very noticeably. But this present one doesn't have separate LEDs for taillight and brake light. So when the strobe flasher activates, it gets all confused and the taillight no longer works, even without me touching the brake. I tried to make just the original turn signals flash, with the same result. Several dozen attempts and configurations later, I concluded that this taillight fixture is not suitable for "brakes flashing". Well, OK. It's still a very nice light unit, worth the money.
My FXR came with aftermarket turn signals from the 1990's, embedded in the chromed fender support rails. You can see it in the photo I posted earlier. I wired those turn signals into the strobe, but LED lights play poorly with old-fashioned incandescent glow bulbs, so there again the LEDs got confused.
I replaced the little turn signal bulbs with LED adapters and small yellow SMD chips. Will fabricate red plastic lenses - fortunately, they are flat - from leftover car parts. The brake strobe doesn't work with those either, but still the brake light will now illuminate three extremely bright lights.
The actual turn signal function went to two newly added chromed bullet lights, activated by their own electronic flasher. The turn signal cancelling module was removed by a previous owner, so I changed the left handlebar switch from pushbutton to a combined left-right switch. Working great so far. I still need to install the wires for the bullets that I've put on the front, to the top of the triple tree on the Wide Glide front end that the bike came with.

71 degrees and sunshine in North Georgia right now (not trying to brag, just stating facts) so I'm headed down to the shop again to finish polishing the primary cover. It's glossy now, but on close look I can see tiny corrosion pits in the surface. They have to come out, and aluminum polishing is a filthy, dusty job. So I had to wait for a nice day where I can do it outside. I highly recommend Tarheel Parts (https://tarheelparts.com/) for supplies like buffing wheels and compounds. Been dealing with them for 20 years, got good advice from them in the past, and I have highly polished aluminum parts on most of my motorcycles.

Oh, while I'm talking about parts purchases: the handlebar I bought online, Harddrive 31-0146S 82-Up 8", ($60) has a nice buckhorn shape, which is what I wanted. BUT the chrome is disappointing. A close look shows that the metal wasn't polished enough before chroming, so it doesn't quite have the mirror finish that you see on Kuryakyn or Flanders products. On the other hand, it looks good when viewed from 2 feet away or farther. I'll use it for a while and will later swap it out for a Flanders bar. I must have bought half a dozen Flanders bars in the past for various bikes, and they've always looked brilliant.

Off to the shop.
Best,
RocDoc
 
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Lots of work still to do before the old FXR shines again...
 
Welcome from Dallas, Georgia!

I’m working on an FXR too! Well trying to at least. Still in the learning phases.
 
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