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Finally got around to getting this installed last night.
I used the stock headlight from the donor bike when I built the bike. My mounting solution was a hack job involving the OEM bracket and an angle grinder.
The ground blade on the stock socket burned out. Replaced it, and the ground blade on the replacement burned out as well. Dug in to fix it a third time, when I saw that the headlight can itself was cracked down where the mounting flange is welded on. Decided I'd had enough. Always wanted something more distinctive anyway.
Got this Electroline repop from Lowbrow.
Install was easy enough. The mount tab on the MotoIron front end was threaded for 3/8-16, and the eye bolt for the new light was metric 10-1.5. Decided to drill out the mounting tab and use a nut on the eye bolt. Simple enough.
I can only assume that the burned out sockets on my original setup were the result of an iffy ground, but I'll be damned if I could find it. When I wired this bike, I ran a ground wire from one of the motor mounts up to the steering head. Went over everything last night with an ohmmeter and it all tested fine. Hmmm...
Got it all buttoned up and went for a spin around the block to verify the alignment. That turned into a 50 mile ride on back roads. Nice.
We'll see if the suspected ground problem comes back, but for the moment, I like it.
Looks good
I guess that the ground wire is at least a 18 ga or better.
If you have less than 1 ohm resistance between the headlight connector ground and neg side of the battery you should be golden.
Yeah, used 18 ga on everything. My ohmmeter bounces between .1 and .2 ohms when I measure from the ground tab on the headlight bulb to one of the gas tank mounting bolts.
I wish I had measured the previous installation the same way. Should have thought to do that before I tore it apart.
If it gives you trouble again, up the wire size to 16 or 14 ga. Wouldn't hurt to put a meter on it and see how much current it's pulling. And your voltage regulator system is working, right? I mean, + at the headlight is around 13V?
If it gives you trouble again, up the wire size to 16 or 14 ga. Wouldn't hurt to put a meter on it and see how much current it's pulling. And your voltage regulator system is working, right? I mean, + at the headlight is around 13V?
I've got half a mind to re-wire the bike over the winter anyway, and if I do, I'll definitely up the gauge. There are a few things I did the first time that I'd like to have another crack at. (Sloppy install stuff that's bugged me ever since.) Also time to get around to some of the "like to's" I skipped the first time. At the moment, I just have the battery eliminator zip tied to the frame. I want to fab up a nice looking bracket for that. I'm also pondering if I want to replace all the oil lines with copper. Nothing wrong with what I've got, but I think the copper would look cool. Or maybe it would look stupid. Can't decide.
The wiring setup itself probably couldn't be any simpler. It goes like this:
You have me thinking about some tests I should run. I'll pull some numbers and we'll see what's what. Will definitely include voltage at the headlight and current in the ground wire flowing from the headlight.
Here's a question for you, Hess: What should I see measuring ohms from the breaker to ground?
18 ga for Headlamp unless an LED is a real stretch. If the lamp(bulb) is a halogen I'd bet money it's gonna burn up again.
Fought with way to many headlamps wiring on later model cars and trucks.
Breaker to ground with no switches for lights, that's going to show a little less than the resistance of your headlight. Figure 55 W headlight is 4-ish ohms, so 4 ohms is a ballpark number for resistance from the breaker to ground. Less with a high beam on.
18 ga for Headlamp unless an LED is a real stretch. If the lamp(bulb) is a halogen I'd bet money it's gonna burn up again.
Fought with way to many headlamps wiring on later model cars and trucks.
WP
If I was teetering before, you just put me over. I'm re-wiring this thing.
The new bulb that came with the Electroline is...I don't know what to call it?...a plain old Edison style resistance bulb. Found out the hard way, reaching down while on the road to nudge the direction a smidge, that the case gets plenty hot.
Originally Posted by Dr.Hess
Breaker to ground with no switches for lights, that's going to show a little less than the resistance of your headlight. Figure 55 W headlight is 4-ish ohms, so 4 ohms is a ballpark number for resistance from the breaker to ground. Less with a high beam on.
Thanks. I'll put that on my checklist.
Anyone have any ideas for sheathing on the wiring? I used this "Chinese finger trap" mesh sort of stuff the first time. It worked ok, but even if you melt the ends, it doesn't give a very neat result. I have an idea of trying to use some shrink wrap to bridge from that mesh stuff to the connectors. Need something to dress up the ends a bit.
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Electroline style headlight
