Bulb sizes?

[x01660]

I'm looking to replace all of the lights on my bike to LED. Instument cluster, turn signals, tail light, all of it.

I can't, for the life of me, find the specific bulb sizes. Can anyone help? Its for a 78 GL1000.

Thanks!

[scootsx2]

Make sure you get an LED-specific turn signal blinker. LEDs don't pull enough current to work with the stock blinker which is for use with incandescent lamps. Some people put resistors in parallel with their LED turn signals to pull enough current to use the stock blinker but that defeats one of the benefits of LED lamps... low current draw.

[Sidecar Bob]

Also, get white LED bulb replacements, not red or amber ones. The white light produced by incandescent bulbs includes a wide range of wavelengths of light so lenses made for them only need to filter out the approximate colours for tail lights & turn signals (e.g. a tail light can be anywhere between tomato red and cherry red). But coloured LEDs produce very specific wavelengths and if the wavelength of the red light doesn't match the wavelength that the lens filters not much of that light will get through. More info here https://www.ngwclub.com/forum/viewtopic ... 24#p439624

Personally, I feel that replacing the entire lights with LED units is a far better solution than using the bulb replacements. There are a lot of LED tail & signal lights on eBay for quite reasonable prices (remember to set Search by to Price + shipping - lowest first). That won't work for the instruments unless you replace the entire instrument panel but considering that the instruments in your bike are 40 years old that might be worth considering.

[x01660]

That won't work for the instruments unless you replace the entire instrument panel

This has me interested; is it not possible to open up the instrument cluster and the volt/temp/fuel gauges to replace the bulbs? It seems like its just some screws that hold it together

Can you clarify?

[Sidecar Bob]

Personally, I feel that replacing the entire lights with LED units is a far better solution than using the bulb replacements. There are a lot of LED tail & signal lights on eBay for quite reasonable prices (remember to set Search by to Price + shipping - lowest first). That won't work for the instruments unless you replace the entire instrument panel but considering that the instruments in your bike are 40 years old that might be worth considering.

In other words, replacing the tail light and turn signals with ones that are specifically designed as LED lights is the best way to change to LEDs but the only way to change to an LED specific design for the instrument panel is to replace the whole thing.

You could just replace the bulbs inside the gauges (& the lights too) and some that have done so say it is an improvement but the result will never be as good as using something that was designed for LEDs in the first place.

BTW: There are no lights with filaments on either of my bikes. I have changed everything to LEDs except the headlights, which are HIDs. I have Danmoto 180 "digital cockpits" (= instrument panels) on both of them and I'm very happy with them.

[tlbranth]

I've replaced all the bulbs on my '75 GL1000 with LED's including the gauges. 2 filament bulbs such as stop/tail, position/turn are 1157 equivalent. Single filament such as rear turn are 1156 equivalent. I don't recall the number for the gauge bulbs but will figure it out for you if pressured. I tried a few 1156 and 1157 bulbs on ebay and was disappointed a lot of the time with lack of brightness. I did finally find some that work well and are bright. Again, if pressured, I will get some info for you.
I will also totally disagree with the remainder of Bob's treatise in that red lenses should have red LED's behind them and amber lenses should have amber LED's behind them. If you use white LED's the colors not agreeing with the lens color will be filtered out and your light will be dimmer.

[Sidecar Bob]

White light is broadband (= all of the wavelengths in the band) so at least some of the light can get through. If, for example, you were to put LEDs that produce 625nm red light behind a red tail light lens that filters 670nm very little will actually get through.

The only way to determine whether a specific coloured LED will work in a specific lens is to set up two identical lenses in the same place at the same time, one with the standard incandescent and one with the LED, and compare them.
When I put the sidecar on Mr.H I bought a pair of rectangular LED trailer lights in the hope that I could mount their boards inside the bike's original tail light and a matching Honda light that I could mount on the sidecar. I hooked up one Honda light with incandescents, one of the trailer lights with its original lens and one of the LED boards sitting inside the other Honda lens in my garage at night with the lights off and looked at them from about 15-20 feet away. The trailer light with original lens was by far the brightest, although its lens actually looks much darker than the Honda lenses. The trailer light board in the Honda lens was significantly dimmer than the others. Even though I would have preferred to have matching Honda lights with LEDs in them on the bike and sidecar, I used the trailer lights in their original, somewhat industrial looking housings and with their original lenses. When safety is involved, form must always come in second to function.

[rcmatt007]

for your instrument panel lights make sure you get ones with the widest dispersion or they will not light up the gauges well.
https://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinf ... fit-car/3/

[gregforesi]

I went with LED's on all bulbs, then found that the neutral circuit didn't like the LED (I think maybe too much resistance built into the bulb). Since neutral, high beam, and oil lights are not "always on" I went back to the incandescent bulbs on those. You'll save about 40 watts on the dash bulbs alone. And, yes, you will need a solid state flasher to work the turn indicators. I spent my 40 watt savings on an off-road 130/90 H4 headlight bulb. That one definitely can't go through the start button so a relay was added. As I recall, the dash bulbs have a BC9S base.

[Sidecar Bob]

The problem is that the wiring has to much resistance, not the LEDs. Ideally wiring should have zero ohms and if it did your LEDs would have worked perfectly. But believe it or not copper wire has a bit of resistance and every time you have any kind of connection more resistance occurs. Yes, even soldered connections have some but in the bike's wiring it is mainly from corroded plug in connections, ancient crimped wire joins and using the frame as part of the negative return path (the battery negative cable is sandwiched between the left engine hanger and the engine so and the green wire from the wiring harness is connected to the frame by one of the bolts at the ignition coils so all current used for lighting has to return to the battery through the frame and either the engine or the engine hanger).

An ohm or 2 of resistance in the circuit won't make a bulb that draws a quarter of an amp enough dimmer that you would notice but it can play havoc with LEDs that draw a tenth of that.

BTW: My 'Wing that is only driven in the nicer half of the year has all LEDs (except for the HID headlights on the bike and sidecar) and the original ground circuit hasn't caused me any problems yet but my winter machine that spends most if its time on salted roads is a different matter. Its harness was originally grounded to a bolt under the seat and when that path became problematic all sorts of strange things started happening. When I realized that the current had to return to the battery through the frame, engine block and starter motor bracket I extended the green wire and attached it directly to the battery's negative terminal instead of the frame and all of the problems I was having disappeared and haven't returned (except that the voltmeter in the fairing still reads low and I know the only way to fix that would be to open the harness and add heavier red and green wires).