headlight out on 75

[GL1-242]

Hey All, been awhile. pulling into Blackhawk parking garage i notice smoke from my headlight turned around to come home. just about dark and i'm an hour in the mountain. 5 min from the casino headlight out, rode rest of way home. dark by now. Doug hooked me up with custom wiring and 2 relays. took headlight out and getting continuity on the blue wire.
looks like it is the wiring in the harness. not the custom wiring he did.
cant find my manual so not sure where blue wire travels.

Paul

[GL1-242]

so from resistor plug i'm grounding out green/yellow to frame. and when i test blue at headlight and green/yellow at pug it grounds out. hummm is this 2 different issue's?

Paul

[GL1-242]

broken filament shorted at base of bulb, got ground hot melted plug. new bulb new inline fuse to relay all good.

Paul

[redglbx]

[gregforesi]

I'm only posting here so you don't feel like you were talking to yourself.

The silvering was gone from my headlight. I went with a Bosch 7" replacement and used a 100 watt halogen H4. That setup definitely requires the relay to keep all that current from passing through the start button.

I'm looking at LED replacements but the one in the bike works and it's paid for.

[redglbx]

Greg, good luck ! Let us know if you find a good LED setup that will fit in the bucket.. About 100yrs ago I replaced my OE pathetic headlight with a European E4 unit from JC Whitney that was slated as an off-road only unit. It had a bulb rated at 100w & 140w ,,, it was bright ! The reason it was rated as a E4 piece was because it had the flat beam with the cut up the right side and the legal SAE units here in the states at the time had a round beam.. Great headlight but it ate 4 start buttons over the years before I realized all those watts were going through the starter button, I didn’t know at that time.

So once I got smart and read the wiring schematics and realized that all the power went through that really to small set of contacts (common Honda issue, even still) ,,, I added 2 40 amp relays (high/low) to take the load off and haven’t killed another starter button in probably the last 20-30yrs, plus the light is brighter with the relays.. sad part is that the relays sent more power to the h4 bulb and eventually burned it out (after about 25yrs use) and I could only find another h4 bulb rated at 80/120w ,, still pretty good .. I’ve been on the hunt for a good LED but haven’t found anything that will fit inside the bucket..

The good thing is that the E4 lense is laser cut and really focuses the light so it doesn’t blind oncoming drivers but quite frankly I didn’t know any of that back and just lucked out on it… anyway if you find an LED bulb that will fit please post about it.

[Sidecar Bob]

BTW if you need a wiring drawing and can't find your manual (or want one on the computer so you can magnify and trace wires easier) the colour wiring drawings are available through the forum. There's a link in my signature or you can find them through the Shop Talk section.

FWIW, the blue wire is high beam, white is low beam and blue/white is power to the headlight switch (logical since it carries current to both the blue and the white).