1981 Honda CM400 headlight replacement / upgrade, LED?

[Daox]

Last night I was leaving my church and noticed my low beam light was out on the bike. I flipped it on high beam and it worked fine to get home. But, this morning, I started the bike up to find out that the high beam was also out... Now, I still have to pull it and make sure its not a wiring issue. But, it does seem to be the bulb. Its the old sealed type, and it looks like it has water in it.

So, in the event that I do replace it, does anyone know of any upgrades that are commonly done? The headlight on this bike is absolutely horrible (and its widely known). It also seems ridiculously pricey to replace at ~$50. So, I'm thinking now would be a good time to perhaps spend a little more and look into LED replacement or something better that allows me to safely see in the dark. I just have no idea what is available to the motorcycle world.

[Daox]

A bit of googling this morning has taught me a lot. It looks like one of the best ways to go about this headlight change is to:

1) Swap out the current headlight bucket to something more modern that uses a standard H4 bulb.

2) Get an LED H4 bulb to go in the new bucket.


I searched on hondatwins to see what guys have done, and there doesn't seem to be much if anything on LEDs (unless their search is bad which is quite possible). But, I did find a cheap H4 bucket here:

H4 Chrome Side Mount 6&1/4" 6.25" Head Lamp Headlight Assembly


I'm still searching on LED H4 bulbs. There appears to be quite a few. Suggestions are welcome.

[user removed]

The last of this thread seemed interesting. Thinking of them on the 3 wheeler. Just swap them out for inspection until they catch up.

ADVmonster LED Headlight! - ADVrider

regards
Mech

[Daox]

That looks pretty inexpensive (for an LED H4), and the photos look nice too. 20W would lower power consumption a bit as well which is nice. The stock light is 35/50W.

[NeilBlanchard]

2400 lumens on both low and high beam? That is bright! I wonder if these are DOT?

[Daox]

Yeah, that is a big crazy bright. I could probably handle half that on low beams for DRLs and full 20W for night driving.

[Daox]

So, last night I ordered this headlight bucket: H4 Black Side Mount 6&1/4" 6.25" Head Lamp Headlight Assembly



Apparently its a tiny bit smaller (OEM is 6.5" I would assume), but it works just fine with minimal modding. For now, I think I'll just throw a standard H4 bulb in it, but down the road I'll be looking at that LED bulb that Old Mechanic posted up. It looks very nice.

I think I even have a pigtail for an H4 bulb from a wiring harness from a car I scrapped out a couple years ago.