CA77 Lamp conversionCA77 Lamp conversionAnyone have any ideas on how to put an H4 bulb into a CA77 headlight fixture without just gluing the bulb into it? I would like to maybe cut the back off of a lamp that uses that kind of bulb and glue that on so that i can take advantage of the tabs that hold it in place.
65 CA77
66 CB77 71 CB450 73 CB350F
Hi,
Believe me, I tried, but failed, so I gave up (for the time being). I wanted to have a H4 lamp where a Xenon fits in (xenon doesn't get so hot, and only uses 35 Watt. My CB72 has a xenon setup and I'm very pleased with the result, so I want one on my C77 as well. I'm planning to "fit" an after market H4 reflector from a CB72 / CB400F behind the glass of a dream headlight, but I'm afraid that the light will blind people coming my way, Jensen assembly of Japanese motorcycles requires great peace of mind (Pirsig)
I want to do this too. I'm still dealing with other issues and haven't gotten around to tackling this one, but I have watched the forum for any information I can find.
Since I have limited success with the search option here, I've been cutting and pasting info from the forum into a Word doc for reference. Here's two responses form the past, although I can't attribute them to their authors. Good luck and PLEASE- post your results and findings if you attempt this operation. Response One: After an exhaustive search that didn't yield a replacement. I took a spare dead headlight I devised my own headlight replacement. 1. Drill a small hole right next to the prong thing in the back of the light. This is to let any gas out (if there is any left in the sealed beam. Be careful not to go to far through 2. Cut off your wiring. Leave the green 3. Get a 1 3/4” or so sized bore bit. and go right down through the center of the prong thing 4. Break and clean out the inside of the light 5. Take a Gen 1 Legacy 90-94 headlight and the back frame (IT FITS ALMOST PERFECT and is a dual beam light with 3 wires) Cut about a 4 inch square or so out of the Legacy light backing 6. Glue it right in the center. I used construction adhesive as I had some but don't know how it will hold up. Make sure not to get any on the inner reflector area 7. Let dry and wire it up. I stuck blue to blue, red to red and the green white to the green ground on the light. . Only issue is the light stays on when running at the moment. Not a bad thing necessarily but I have to search down a legacy wiring diagram to figure out if I wired it wrong. Cost me all of $10 at the junkyard and it is brighter than the original and the bulbs are easily replaced!!! Hope it helps some of ya out there! Response #2 I have a 68 dream 305. When my headlight went out i could not find a headlight for it . So i modified. I took the light off the bike and heated the solder holding in the inner bulb. Carefully pull out the black 3 pronged back. I used a propane torch. The inner bulb will break. Take a screwdriver and carefully crush the inner bulb so it will fit through the back hole. BUY A SYLVANIA 9003 XV HALOGEN XTRAVISION. and orange high temp silicon tube .slide the new bulb in to make sure the remaining solder isn't in the way. You'll have three prongs.test them to see which wires go where.Your wirering may be different from mine.Then take it out and put rtv around it, reinstall it and let it dry overnight. Then put your wires on the back and bend the bulb prongs flat. If you don,t it will ground on the speedometer and short out. Put electric tape over it too. Reinstall headlight assembly. Now you'll have a haolgen new light. If it goes out after a while just remove the bulb and go down town to an auto parts store and get a new one plus you'll be more visable and see better with halogen. They go for $17.00 aprox. Take your time crushing up the leftover inner bulb . you don't want to break your outer glass. Hope this helps. KIP '63 CA77 - Giving me all kinds of headaches.
'64 CA77 - Patiently waiting it's turn '65 CB77 - A 'great winter project'
There's a lot of retrofitting in the automobile market. Mostly converting reflectors to projectors, but the guys that do it are super talented and know their stuff. One of the companies I work with is called lightwerkz. They probably never worked with glass motorcycle lights but if anybody could get it done in an attractive way, they could.
Of course, it's probably not the cheapest solution. If anybody is interested, their site is: http://www.lightwerkz.net Here is what I did with the aftermarket light housing.Not sure if many come up for sale anymore on Fleabay.Very simple.Also, I saw where a guy was able to cut slots in the back and had a socket from another bike headlight and it had prongs that would hook into the glass.Not sure what bike it was from but it worked very well.
Thread resurrection, but I wanted to report that I successfully removed the bulb from a sealed beam headlight today using method #2. I used a soldering iron and swept the molten solder away with an acid brush as I went around the socket. Then, I supported the bulb socket with a pair of pliers and drilled down through the center with progressively larger bits. I broke the bulb with a piece of coat hanger wire, bending it as needed to get to the sides of the rather large round bulb inside the headlight. Afterward, I stuffed a length of Swiffer dusting material on a string into the headlight to mop up the dust. Tomorrow, I'll go to the auto parts store to look for a bulb and high temp silicone. I'm thinking it might be better to use the back end of an auto headlight socket as outlined in method #1, but I don't have access to a junk yard.
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