Headllight upgrade

[ob1quixote]

I havent noted any heat issues in approximately 4K miles on my naked wing. While it is bulkier than a sealed beam, installing it was not hard. It is plug-n-play, and throws a great beam! I see more and more of them on bikes, the cruiser crowd likes them too.

[5speed]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/7-inch-200W-LE ... Sw38ddUhRX

I didn't plan on wiring anything unnecessary either.

I have also got one of these lined up for my rebuild into the Hondaline fairing to replace the HID 35w that keeps blowing ballasts due to heat, the last time it let me down was about 10 miles outside of Luckenbach TX, at night. Not a good place.
It had also gone out in Amarillo and Santa Fe NM, 3 times in the same run, you can tell that I've kinda gotten used to this.

My question is though? Do these things also produce just as much heat that needs to be removed, but maybe from a different place, I see a big old heat sink on the back of the unit. I'm thinking maybe I might need to cut some kind of hole in the top of the fairing or something?

How do they perform in naked bikes? With all that close quarters wiring in the headlamp bucket? That would be a good indication. I'm looking for reliability and if I've got to go back to a regular old H4 for that, then that's what I've got to do.

If you want a quick plug and play, no muss, no fuss get the led replacement bulb I linked to earlier. It takes longer to take the headlight out then it does to install it.
It's never caused any issues for me in the 3 years I've had it.

[Sidecar Bob]

The problem with replacement bulbs is that you still have a 35+ year old reflector/lens unit, which means decades of tarnish on the reflector and tiny scratches on the lens from dust and insect impacts.

12 years ago I decided the headlights on my bikes needed to be replaced because of big unlit areas in the middle of their high beams which I largely attributed to those issues and after shopping around for a while I ended up buying a pair of car headlight replacements from J.C.Whitney. Using the same H4 bulbs as the old Stanley units I found that the low beams were brighter and the highs, while still a bit dimmer in the middle, were more even and lit the sides of the road a lot better.
When I added the sidecar to Mr.H a couple of years later I installed inexpensive HIDs from eBay in them and the dimness in the middle of the high beam went away completely. I also converted a pair of H3 off road "spotlights" to HID low beams and mounted one on each sidecar (I only turn them on at night).

The JCW headlights have plastic lenses so I didn't expect them to last as long as the original glass lenses and I would be looking to replace them again by now if I drove at night as much as I used to (I think I turned the sidecar headlight on 3 times last winter), especially the one on the winter machine that I drive when they put sand &c on the roads for traction. If I eventually decide it is needed I will look seriously at LED headlight replacements but anything I install in the winter machine has to get hot enough to melt snow/ice off of the lens if I am out in bad weather and I have heard that is a problem with LED headlights.

Re HID ballasts overheating: Of the 4 HIDs I have (2 per bike) I've only had one ballast fail in 10 years. Where do you have it mounted? On the 'Wing (no fairing) I mounted one ballast in place of the turn signal cancelling unit and the other in the sidecar and on the CX (Honda Interstate fairing) I have one in the fairing and the other in the sidecar.
My fairing is modified a bit. I removed the rubber air ducts and plated over the openings (it is for winter so I don't need the vents). I have a stereo mounted in the former snap lid pocket and installed in the right side opening (with marine stereo cover) and I have the hard lid screwed down over the left opening with no pocket (I wanted more room for wiring to the switches on the removable panel). The ballast and the headlight relays are bolted to the left interior of the fairing just ahead of where the pocket would be.

[Pony Ruiz]

My question is though? Do these things also produce just as much heat that needs to be removed, but maybe from a different place, I see a big old heat sink on the back of the unit.

I'd like to know the answer to this as well. My stock headlight bucket is metal and there isn't a lot of space in there. I like the look of this light though. It appears to be self contained - no big long led bulb and then a big fan unit sticking out the back of the headlight. There is no place for that to go on a naked unless maybe there is a bigger headlight bucket to be had.

I did a relay mod on the headlight on my interstate I had and plan to do on my 78 naked. The light was definitely brighter. I have instructions somewhere if anyone is interested. There might be something in shop talk. I found / was turned on to this by a former forum member.

[Sidecar Bob]

I can't say for the LED bulb replacements and other headlight (reflector/lens) units but the headlights I bought are enough deeper than the originals that even with the H4 halogen bulb it wouldn't fit inside the chromed steel GL1000 headlight bucket I was using on Mr.H at the time so I had to change to an old black plastic Honda headlight shell I had. By the time I changed to the HIDs a couple of small cracks in that shell had become big cracks so I changed to a metal headlight assembly I put together from Kawi & Suz parts at a wrecker. It had 2 holes for wires and I had to open them into one large oval hole to clear the back of the HID bulb.

On the winter machine I had to bore a hole in the fairing (in the part where the inner & outer shells are bonded together) for the back of the bulb to stick through, and it has to be oval so that the headlight can be adjusted.

If I was going to change to an LED headlight I think I would look at complete headlight units instead of replacement bulbs for 2 reasons: 1) They are designed as a unit so you know that the LEDs and any reflector &c should work together optimally (a replacement bulb will always be a compromise) and 2) They are generally thinner so they should fit in the original headlight shell with even more room than the original headlight.