Triumphrat

Mancha

This is a project for the future, but I thought I'd shoot my idea out there and see if it's even plausible.

I want to replace my Thruxton headlight with twin headlights, such as those found on the Buell Firebolt (see below). I've been watching eBay, however, and have lost any number of Buell headlight auctions, so now I'm looking at automobile driving lights.



Here's the deal, driving lights seem to come cheap (w/ 30w bulbs for about $20) and expensive (w/55w bulbs for about $40). I would get the 55w bulbs, which should, I would think, provide about as much light as the OEM headlight and high beam. What I wonder is if these could be easily wired into the existing wiring? Do you think I could just snip the wires to the Thruxton light and solder in the wires to the driving lights, then expect them to light up as usual at start and using the highbeam switch????

Mancha

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sweatmachine

I think they would work as you describe. There are 3 wires going into the headlight IIRC, ground, + for low beam, and + for high beam.

If you ran the ground to each light, and a + to each light (one low, one high) I don't see why it wouldn't work.

The difficult part, and I just went through this, is relocating all the wires that used to live inside the headlight. I kind of tried to cut and reroute/retape as much as I could, and I ended up pretty much stuffing and zip-tying it wherever I could cram it. The tank hides most of it.

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Click for a picture of my slightly modified Bonnie

OKcarburetor

http://www.rallylights.com/

That place has the Hella projector pods you'll need. They aren't too expensive for halogen, but the HID versions are another story.

I've been thinking about cramming a 50mm and 90mm module into my headlamp bucket, but it's kinda low priority right now.

edit: http://www.rallylights.com/hella/headlamps.asp

the 50mm, 90mm, and 120mm modules are on this page

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Ossimer

Sounds like an interesting idea. Has anyone tried this? OKcarb, definitely keep us posted with your progress.

Did you consider looking into speed/street triple headlights? Those may be bigger than you want, but would give you a similar effect.

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RedBird

Rodburner put twin headlights on his bonnie sometime last year, I believe. Can't remember which ones he used, but the S3 ones come to mind. He has posted pics of his a number of times, and it looks good IMHO.

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2003 T-100 (790cc), NARK, NH Togas, 8100 rpm rev limiter, 158 main jets, 42 pilot jets (less than 1 turn out on pilot screws), stock needles--no shims. 13 A/F ratio from 1100 rpm to 4000 rpm; 12 A/F ratio from 4000 rpm to 6000 rpm; 13 A/F from 6000 rpm to 8100 rpm.:D
2007 Tiger 1050--White:D--SW-Motech crashbars, Skidmarx rear hugger/chain guard, Calsci +7 windscreen.

rodburner

Dual headlights work fine.I`ve been thinking of going with a smaller set of driving lights lately,one fog pattern for the low and daytime and a driving for the high beam with maybe a switch/relay to run both if I ever got stuck riding at night.

These are John Deere tractor lights I got off one of our old backhoe`s.I have the stock 35w[?] sealed beam in the low side and a 60w halogen in the high side.They are 4-1/2" lights,readily available at HD dealers among others.The cool part to me about the Deere`s is no hardware holding in the lights.The buckets are rubber and you just push the light into the groove and pry it out with a screwdriver to replace.I did have to upsize the single wire inside each housing to 12g from the little 20g to handle the draw from the halogen though.No sweat.

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Catenaccio

John Deere headlights. Who wouldda thunk it? Looks cool!

Mancha

What I want to do is mount them in a traditional racing (ie: no headlight) fairing. I would either mount them low, side by side, or stacked on top of each other and to one side. The remainder of the fairing nose could then be a number plate, or whatever. I could make a box inside the fairing to mount the various wires and connectors.

Thanks Okcarb for the link. However, I'm not willing to spend $100 per light. If there's not a cheaper way, then I'm not willing to do it.

Ossimer, as you say, Speed Triple lights (and various other alternatives available on eBay) would be too large to sort of "hide" in the fairing. I want these to be inconspicuous.

Rodburner, could you share more specific information about how you wired your twins? If your low-fog/high-driving idea works, we could each buy a set and switch them out. Regarding the switch/relay idea, couldn't the regular high-beam switch work somehow?

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D9

Mancha... that's gonna look mean!

I like how Buells look... and how the front
end looks on the pic you posted...

Side by side small HIDs sound interesting... and the over/under sounds really wild... I say go for it!

Cheers,

D9

rodburner

Seth,I was looking at some plain old Pilot HyperWhites.Blue tint glass and little chrome steel bodies.As far as the current [sorry] wiring,its just high to high/low to low.I would think a relay tapped into the high side wire could shunt over to the low side easily enough and a heavy duty diode in the low side should prevent back feeding the low side back into the factory switch/wiring harness.? examples only.
http://www.accessconnect.com/pilot.htm

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