Headlight Watts and Bulbs By speedracer (Read 4,321 times)

[damin69]

Oct 6, 2010 15:03:50 GMT -6 speedracer said:

monkeywrench, I have thought of the HID lights, but I suck at electronics. I am going to give the Halogen light bulbs a chance and pray I don't melt the lens covers. IF they give off almost twice the light I should be in good shape riding home at night.

Really the HID install is very easy.. The hardest part is finding a place to mount the Ballasts. The rest is all really strait forward. HID is the way to go for best Light for safety. I did a write up on installing as well as Cruiser. HID upgrades are pretty much just like plugging in a light bulb.

[speedracer]

damin69 What may be straight forward to you and others is not the case with me. Things like run a wire to the battery, mount the ballast, the blue wire goes to the white, the white to the green, etc (making up wire connections) is all greek to me. For the life of me I could never understand the reasons why you have to remove the entire front end to change a burnt out light bulb.

[damin69]

exactly my point. If you can figure out the taking off the front of the Scoot to change a bulb you are definitely smarter than you think.

[speedracer]

I decided to go the cheaper route by installing 35W Halogens. Received word from the Doc today that they will put out more light, and the same heat as the OEM bulbs. They should arrive on Tuesday and will put them in and put in two new LED's for the turn signals. That will give me all LED's except for the dash, which I will leave as is. I'll let everyone know how much of an increase in light I receive.

[yoster]

You should install one of each then take a pic for us.

A general note about the headlights and front driving lights. Once you see how they come out, you can actually do it without taking the front plastic off. You can just stick your hand up there, feel around and get the brackets to un-clip, then pull out the bulb and harness. The little driving lights are even easier, just reach up, find it, turn counter-clockwise and pull out.

[gmoney]

Here's a link to the one I use, a 35W Halogen bulb, been using it now for several months with no ill effects. www.partsforscooters.com/138-59_12v_35w_bulb
The price is right too, only $4.95 plus shipping. I also replaced my running lights and brake light bulb, used this site: www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/index.cgi?action=DispPage&Page2Disp=%2Fspecs%2F1157-R19W6_motorcycle_bulb.htm

Gary

[speedracer]

Gary, I already have the headlights on there way. Good having another vendor to go to. All of rear Led's I ordered through Ebay and my front Led blinkers from Super Bright as they have fast shipping and quality lights.

[gmoney]

I agree, superbright has great lights at a fair price. I've been running LED's for several months, seems my brake light would burn out in a month or less, these new lights are working great and have a superior bulb life.

Gary

[speedracer]

I'm going to take some daylight pictures of before and after. If there is a big difference it will show during the day. Should be posting them on Tuesday or Thursday.

[speedracer]

Well another day of Hell for me. I knew my new Halogens and Led blinker lights were coming in today's mail so I decided to get a jump on things. I removed the windshield, all the screws and the two bolts on the bottom of the front plastic. So far so good about an hour taking my time. I disconnected all the connectors for the lights and took the front end in the house. I removed the front headlights only to find out they were 25 watt bulbs and not 35 W.

Mail comes and there are my two packages. First I opened the one with the Halogens only to find they looked about 10 years old. There was like a glue on the bulb and the connectors appeared to have corrosion on them. I won't say what I screamed out, but it wasn't nice at all. BTW one of the halogens was even secured tight to the base, I could actually move it.

i said to myself no way am I going to be this all back together order new halogens and take this all apart again. So I got in my car and went off to the scooter store not far from me. I was able to purchase 2 standard 35 W bulbs, but they had no halogens with the same base. Back home and went to work putting the headlights and signal lights in. Plugged them in and started scooter. Thankfully they worked and went on to assemble the front end. Just to let you know I purchased these halogens on Ebay cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280497461381&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT Please do not purchase them from that seller. I already emailed him for a return.

Well now I am waiting for it to get dark so I can see if I have better lighting then before. I should, but who knows. What a day I had.

[yoster]

You ultimately did what I did. I replaced my 25w (the scooter says 35w stock.. lies!) with 35w of the same type.

I still want to go halogen though; I'll probably order from one of the non-ebay stores that I posted. Though so far the 10w increase in the standard bulbs is getting me by.

Always mixed results from those eBay guys.

[speedracer]

All the time I thought I had 35W headlights only to find out there were 25W. I wonder how many 250 B's are riding on 25W headlights and don't know it. Gmoney thinks he has Halogens in his scooter, but I called Parts for Scooters an they said it is a standard 35 W light. His seems brighter more then likely because he had 25 W headlights to begin with.

[scooterran]

Speedracer, have you got your new light bulbs in yet? If so, how are they doing ? Putting enough light out? I think I burnt out the head light on the left side. I put all the plastics back on after doing a valve setting on my 250-B. Then I went to the car wash to clean it up. I must have gotten some water into a place that it shouldn't be. I didn't notice this till after dark when I changed the oil.

[speedracer]

scooterran Take a look at post #25 I have pictures of the new headlights compared to the old ones. There were 25w bulbs in it and the halogens I purchased were all gummed up so I went out and purchased 2 35W bulbs and installed them since I had the front completely off. I still want the Halogens but the 35w bulbs are a major improvement over what I had. I can see a lot further down the road then before.

[scooterran]

Hopfully, there is an easy way to get to the headlight without ripping all the plastics off the front end. I'M all EARS !!!!!