LED headlight bulb

AFTER A FEW scary evening rides on my T140V last year, I resolved to avoid riding it in poor light until I could find some way of improving the old Lucas headlight.

At the Bristol Classic Show in February I visited Paul Goff’s stand, gritted my teeth and splashed out £25.95 on one of his headlight LED bulbs.

I’ve been looking at other LED light conversions, but some require serious modification to the headlight, or adapters and extra resistors. Paul’s on the other hand was the simplest option.

It’s plug and play. On the Bonneville, upgrading the lights just involves undoing the screw holding the headlamp rim, popping the reflector out, then you just pull the old tungsten bulb out and pop the new one in. It’s got the same dimensions as the original bulb.

The new bulb has LEDs that sit in their own heatsink, with a set on either side. The dip beam shines out of the bottom, reflecting off the bottom of your headlight’s reflective bowl. At full beam both top and bottom of the reflector are illuminated.

The difference is striking, especially at full beam. The light is white rather than yellow and throws the beam a lot further. It doesn’t scatter either, or illuminate the top of trees, which can happen with some of the cheaper options.

On older bikes the vibration can shatter a conventional filament, and the LEDs don’t have them to shatter.

The LEDs are less drain on the electrical system too. Paul offers a range of these bulbs, including a halogen replacement with the heatsink inside the headlight body that connects to the loom via a wire and a connector block.

£26 for a headlight bulb might seem expensive but this will last longer. In any event I remember spending £60 for a Cibie unit for my Honda to do the same job back in the 1980s. And now I’ll be able to see where I’m going…

Paul is continuing with his mail order business – norbsa02.freeuk.com – during the Covid-19 lockdown. Oli

■www.norbsa02.freeuk.com■ £25.95

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