Heartland Bullet LEDs – Light It Up
1. Heartland USA offers their Billet Tears in two sizes, small and medium. The Tears come in chrome, gloss black, or wrinkle black finish, with red or amber LEDs. We opted for the small, gloss black with red LEDs ($229.00). Their sleek design will look great with this bike.
2. We are going to use this simple mounting bracket and hardware to secure the LEDs to either side of the rear fender.
3. One of the fender mounting bolts (inside, middle) was removed, then the bracket was slid against the inside of the fender and secured in place with the fender bolt. The LED was then bolted to the lower portion of the bracket. With minimal bracket material showing, it looks like the LED is just floating on the side of the fender.
4. Since we were going to be using these LEDs as run/brake and turn signals, we picked up one of Badlands Illuminators ($118.85), which feature a built in load-equalizer. The turn signal unit or flasher is load dependent, and needs a certain amount of current to function. Many bikes are designed to flash at a faster rate if a bulb is burned out. Since LEDs draw much less current, without a load equalizer turn signals may act as if a bulb is out and flash at the faster rate. This is a slick unit because it plugs right into the stock harness. Then you just wire the LEDs into the Illuminator.
5. In less than 30 minutes our bike was well-lit, safe, and still had cool style.
We’re all about safety, but when it comes to run/turn/brake signals, bigger isn’t always better. An LED (Light Emitting Diode) signal half the size of a stock signal can outshine stock any day-or night, for that matter. There are several other benefits to LEDs as well: they last many times longer than traditional bulbs, are more durable, draw way less power, and conduct minimal heat.
We rolled over to Mercury Customs and photographed the install of a set of LEDs on a ’96 Softail with a Heartland 180 rear tire kit.
