Stop Light and Clutch Switches

Brake light and clutch switch - warning and safety on the Harley-Davidson.

To give the following traffic a chance to react to the braking maneuver of those ahead, brake lights have been around since the 1930s. The brake light switch is a electrical device which ensures that the movement of the brake pedal or handbrake lever is converted into a signal. Over the decades, there have been many different designs of such switches. What they all have in common from our selection is that they have two connections: one for positive and the other goes to the brake light. NO ground connection whatsoever. When using a D-box, for example, you have to think about this and connect the connecting wires of the brake light switches accordingly.

The clutch switch is not used to warn the following riders, but together with the idle switch and the side stand switch it is responsible that the engine stops as soon as you engage a gear and the side stand is still folded out. Or that you can't start the engine if a gear is engaged and the clutch is not pulled.

Why aren't there brake light switches and clutch switches for my 2012 Softail?

We actually don't have those for the handlebar switches. That's because, just like all 2011 and later Softails, 2012 and later Dynas, and 2014 and later Tourers and Sportsters, the handlebar controls on this model contain microprocessors. Only four wires go to the left-hand armature, and only five to the right (Softail 2010 still has eight and six.) The switches are permanently connected to these electronics and can only theoretically be replaced individually. There are also no conventional power surges coming out of these gauges, but processed byte packets that tell the central computer which switch you just activated.

The brake light switches for the foot brake of Servi-Cars from 1951, Big Twins from 1958 and Sportster from 1979 are the same. They differ in that they are not connected to plus and brake light, but to body control module and ground. But you will notice that only by looking at the wiring diagram.