Headlight dims?

I really haven't ran my bike at night since I have gotten it until the other day. the more I rev the engine up the dimmer the headlight gets. When i got the bike the headlight was broken and i replaced it with a sylvania halogen light. Do I not have enough power to push the halogen light? If this isn't it where else should I look?

Just your headlight or all lights? Out of curiosity, have you checked your voltages and do your ground connections all look good? I had a similar problem years ago on an old Yamaha where all my lights would dim and I wasn't charging properly. I once through cleaning all connections and making sure I had good grounds cleared it up.

I suspect that your regulator isn't doing its job. It is supposed to keep the DC voltage within upper and lower limits. It would seem that your voltage is a bit higher than it should be and could easily be checked with a multimeter in VDC mode. Put the probes on your battery terminals and rev the engine. It should be no more than 14.5 VDC at 4K rpm. If you get more, the regulator is bad (or it could be regulator/rectifier on newer models) and this excess voltage will eventually start to cause other electrical bits to overheat and over charge and will ruin them. Check now before you have to buy a new battery and other stuff.

I checked the voltage at the battery while running and at idle it is around 12.5v and at 4000rpm at around 13.1v. The headlight is the only thing that dims. My running light on my taillight stays the same. I will check to see if it is grounded good. Where else should i check?

On my father in laws bike the lights were dimming when he reved the engine and it turned out to be the ground was loose on the battery. All his lights dimmed at the same time.
Yours only dims the headlight so I would have to say it is going to be the headlight circuit. Check to see if you have good ground. I know on some models the headlight ground is to the bucket. Run a jumper wire from headlight ground to the battery ground and see if the light still dims.

Know that I think about it I had a similar problem and found out that I had a corroded and burnt wire coming off the stator. It was a yellow wire. I have three yellows coming off the stator and one of them werre bad.
I fixed the wire and got 14.5 volts to the battery and my light didnt dim any more.

I went out and bought a new headlight and the problem went away. Must have been a bad connection within the headlight itself. All is good now.

Oh, come on now bkitchen, things aren't that easy to fix,,, :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: . Glad to see it worked out for you.
Ride safe.

The Milkman wrote:

Oh, come on now bkitchen, things aren't that easy to fix

Agreed! Couldn't you at least make something up!?

At least tell use you saw smoke from the harness:lol:

Ok...I prayed to the electrical gods as I howled at a full moon around a campfire......oh yeah then I just replaced the headlight.

Post edited by: bkitchen, at: 2007/07/12 16:22

wheeehw I has worried there for a second:laugh: