It's dark. It's cold. It stopped raining and is now just a light drizzel. The PERFECT time to test out the new Sylvania Silverstar headlight that came TODAY!!!

It's bright. There was a VERY NOTICABLE difference between the Silverstar and the stock headlight. Even more of a noticable difference when I'm cruising down the road admiring the brighness and the headlight goes OUT!!!

2 second FREAK out!!

Then it came back on. I put it on low beam thinking I'll go home and check things out. It goes OUT again. Pretty freaky feeling. To top things off one lens fell out of my glasses and all of a sudden everything is all out of whack even with light.

Guess i'm not meant to ride on cold, dark rainy nights.

Anyway...WTF!!?? Any ideas what I should check?? The light just goes out intermitently even while sitting perfectly still. Low beam or high beam.

 

I dunno what the installation procedure was for your new light but it's probably a loose connection somewhere. One thing's for sure, if the problem is intermittent then it isn't the fuse. Closely check the connections to your new product. As it stands now, an intermittently functioning headlight is a disaster waiting to happen for you. Good luck and be careful. Let us know what you find.

Mike

 

The connection is a straight forward 3 prong plug with a boot.

A couple of weeks ago I connected 2 55 watt aux lights and over amped the fuse box. I put in a bigger fuse ( I know,...I know) but the same thing happened. The whole curcuit would go dead then come back on. It was almost like it cut out to build up juice then kicking back on. I figured when I took the aux lights off and replaced the 10a fuse with another 10a fuse and everything worked, everything was OK.

Now I'm spooked.

Is there any kind of overload protection or cut out function anywhere other than fuses? The tail light stays lit. Is there a ground specific to the headlight that might be loose?

 

Strange... What is the wattage of the new bulb compared to the old? It seems odd that the bike would just 'dump' the headlight temporarily. I have a backround in electronics but must admit that I'm vexed on this one. Anyone???

Mike

 

I don't have any idea what is causing the problem, but had to laugh at the part about your lense falling out. I was doing about 80 on my sport bike and the same thing happened to me. It rattled around in my helmet for a second and then dropped out the bottom. Tried catching it and almost wrecked. Rode the rest of the day all googly eyed.

Good luck with the headlight fix. Should be a loose connection somewhere. Try wiggling all the wires around while watching the headlight and see if it goes out.

 

Running two aux light along with your stock headlight is beyond what your stator can handle. Running them them on the same circuit with your headight is REALLY not a good idea, because you are pulling about 15A when all three are on. All of the head light current is shouldered by the handle bar switch and ignition sw (no relay to handle the current). By throwing in a beefier fuse, you are putting a lot of stress on those two switches.

Now that I'm off my soapbox ,The first spot I would look at is where you tapped into the headlight power wire (red, I believe). There might be an intermittent connection caused by the tie-in splice or whatever you used to tap that power (they cut more wire than they are supposed to sometimes).

If that doesn't fix the problem, it's time to trace the headlight wire all the way from the headlight back to the fuse box. It's possible the extra heat from running all three lights caused something to heat up too much and either open or short out. Most likely you would still be blowing fuses if it's a short though. If you're handy with a volt/ohm meter with sparpened test lead ends, you could probably isolate the bad section of the circuit quicker by reading the volts at various sections working from one end to the other.

HOPEFULLY you don't have a handle bar switch or -much worse- one section of the ignition sw going bad. Run a separate wire from the battery next time you want to try running big loads like that. The charging system would still loose ground while they were on, but you could recover while they were off, and you wouldn't be overloading the headlight circuit .

 

I know it's the same bulb but that does not mean they are built with the same tolerences. I would try out your old bulb again and if it works fine I would say the contact points on the Sylvania need a dab of silver solder. I had the same bulb before then sold it to a friend and it worked fine for both of us.

 

I have a silverstar in my bike and it works fine. I would do as Green Monsta says

 

The same thing happed to his separate driving lights after going to a larger fuse. I suppose the contacts were bad in both of those too.

I luv speed readers. Nothing like getting all the facts first.

 

Gremlins....

The wires I spliced into for the aux lights are soldered, shrink tubed and taped. I'll check them while I'm fiddling though.

I don't think the Silverstar bulb is drawing too much current. Too many KLXers use them.

I'll try geting a better connection by soldering the terminals of the bulb. If it doesn't help, it can't hurt.

I need an excuse to put these Renthal bars on anyway so I can give the wiring and switches a closer look.

They sure don't cut us any slack (no pun intended) in the wiring department, do they?