Help with diagnosing flasher issue

I have an 82 XJ650 Seca that I bought, which was missing the front flashers. The Left Control on the bike is original, and the flasher controls doesn't work, as the wires have come unsoldered. I pulled the control apart, and can jump the hot to the ground for each flasher, and the back flashers come on, but they do not blink they stay solid on. I went and grabbed a couple LED lights (all they had) fashioned some brackets, mounted, and wired them into the harness. Jumped the wires again, all the lights come on, but don't blink. My first though was the flasher relay was bad, but checking for a price on a new relay I cam across this in Chacal's Catalog post.

"Also, if you substitute LED bulbs in your turn signals for the standard incandescent bulbs, then the stock flasher (which is mechanical) will not see enough of an electrical load to be able to flash correctly, if at all. In such a situation, the stock flasher is not defective, it is just designed to operate at a much higher voltage draw than LED lights provide. In such a situation, you would have to replace the stock flasher with an aftermarket solid-state flasher, which will also defeat the self-canceller feature of the original system."

So my question is, if I am missing lights (completely removed from the circuit) will the flasher engage, or will the back lights stay solid? Will the same thing happen if I have only two LEDs in the circuit and two stock lights, or would they still flash?

I don't really care if the lights are LED vs Incandesent, I just want them to work so I can get the thing inspected. I haven't been able to find regular lights, everything I can find local is either super expensive or LED. I am going to go on a trip around to every store I can think of to find some lights that will work, but I am curious if my current setup or lack of front flashers would cause the relay to stop working, or if the relay is bad.

I am leaning towards the relay being just fine, but maybe that just me hoping. Those relays are expensive

 

you will need to get your hands on an electronic flasher relay, quite inexpensive at your local auto parts store.
All you will need to do after that is rewire the connection harness to the relay to match the prongs of the new relay

 

The relay is probably fine. You need the equivalent resistance of 2 bulbs on each side for it to flash. So 1 bulb in back and LED up front will not flash. You would have to put a resistor on for each LED. I think a 6ohm 50w is what you need. You could pick two up at RadioShack, solder them inline with the power going to the LED, and you are good to go.

 

He could try that, but when I put LED's on my Seca, I tried like four different electronic flashers (yes, I was rewiring them) and couldn't get any to work, so I went with the resistors.

 

Sweet, so it is a pretty simple and cheap fix then. Either buy new lights that arn't LED or buy the resistors. I'll have to go around and see what I can find. I'd rather not "guess" with a relay if the issue is fixed by simply changing the lights or putting on a resistor. Plus, I kinda wanna keep the stock auto-off feature on the flashers if at all possible.

 

This might be crazy but I too hooked up all four corners for LEDs and it went solid. But I didn't have any extra money so I attached 2 regular bulb sockets with bulbs inline from the flasher relay and secured them under the frame under the seat. I suppose my butt might be blinking in pitch blackness (not really they're hidden) but the blinkers flash just fine and it cost me about an hour of my time and 2 bulb sockets I had in my spare parts bin.

 

That was always an option, too. The extra bulbs will certainly provide the resistance. As long as you're being creative, why not hollow out the led's and put the bulbs in there?

 

Ok, so I am at a loss still. I have tried LEDs with a resistor (8Ohm 20Watt was all i could find) and no go. Hooked up a small incandescent light I got from a Tractor Supply, and still solid. I tried resistor with the new lights, still solid. I tried adding in extra bulbs with the incandescent lights, still solid. I can take a HUGE light that came off a truck (big amber running light) and hook it up and everything works fine. I had the resistor hooked up "in-line" on the hot lead, and hooked up bridging the hot and ground along side the light.

I am about ready to call it quits and just order the damned stock lights, I am just sick of waiting for parts in the mail. I realize that, had I just ordered the lights a couple weeks ago they would be here by now..... :x

Can anyone help one last time with the resistor hook up before I just give up completely?