New location for driving light mounts

[Flyinfool]

I bought the driving lights that I will be putting onto my MK II.

They are the KC HiLites series 35.

I have these same lights on my truck and really like them.

The lens is designed to put some light forward like a driving light, but to also fill in the sides of where the stock headlight can't reach. very little of the beam is wasted on adding light to the same areas as the stock headlight.

These come with 55W halogen bulbs that I plan to replace with 35W HID. 3 forward looking HIDs should light things up pretty good at night and keep me visible in the daytime.

 

I am thinking of mounting them to the faring on the flat area just below the air intakes.

I have not taken the vent out yet to see if there is room to add a reinforcement thickness of plastic to strengthen the area.

 

Do you think that the plastic of the faring is strong enough as is to handle the weight of the light while bouncing down the road or do I really need to strengthen it some?

[twigg]

I plan on making a couple of brackets and mounting mine to the mirror mounts.

 

They will sit behind the mirrors, at the perfect height and spacing.

 

Lowes has 2" wide aluminum strips (1/8th thick ... maybe 3/16ths) for about $10.

 

Anyway, it should be plenty strong enough. The lights are small and weigh very little.

[friesman]

I plan on making a couple of brackets and mounting mine to the mirror mounts.

 

They will sit behind the mirrors, at the perfect height and spacing.

 

Lowes has 2" wide aluminum strips (1/8th thick ... maybe 3/16ths) for about $10.

 

Anyway, it should be plenty strong enough. The lights are small and weigh very little.

 

I think that migh be a great place to mount som lights, i would love to see pics when you get that done.

 

Brian

[twigg]

I think that migh be a great place to mount som lights, i would love to see pics when you get that done.

 

Brian

 

I'll happily provide pics.

 

It will take a short while, currently the bike is nekkid of it's fairing, carbs, airbox, coils and ignition.

 

The exhaust headers are off, the starter is coming out.

 

It sounds drastic but all the required bits are on their way.

[Marcarl]

I would think that you're pushing Jeff, even with re-enforcing. Those lights will catch a fair bit of wind and have enough weight to jiggle around some through vibration and pot holes. I would like to see them mounted to something steel if it was up to me to decide.

[Condor]

I have a set of something similar mounted on the '91 with the standard type 'squidley' mount, although they are tungston, and have a high/low beam. They work pretty good.

[twigg]

I would think that you're pushing Jeff, even with re-enforcing. Those lights will catch a fair bit of wind and have enough weight to jiggle around some through vibration and pot holes. I would like to see them mounted to something steel if it was up to me to decide.

 

Behind that section of fairing is lots of steel, with mounting points for various bits.

 

What he could do is fashion a steel bracket that bolts to the fairing mount, and terminates with a flat section directly behind the plastic.

 

Then he could bolt straight through the plastic into the steel mounts.

 

That would look good and be easier to do than to describe

[Flyinfool]

Ok so tonight I will look to what it takes to get the vents out (looks like just 1 screw from the pics) and see what kind of metal structure is around there that I can tie into.

Looks like more parts to make.

[Keemez]

I have one pair of lights mounted in the area you're talking about... simple bolt with a locknut on the inside. Had to bend the mounting bracket a bit to fit the contour of the fairing, but that's not all that difficult to do if you practice a little patience. Doesn't seem to wobble around or vibrate that I can tell, although my lights are probably significantly lighter/smaller than what you got. Notice that I have white LED H3s in place of the standard 55w halogens. They aren't all that spectacularly bright but they do cast some general light forward and make it more visible. Let me know if you want some more pics.

[Flyinfool]

I plan on making a couple of brackets and mounting mine to the mirror mounts.

 

They will sit behind the mirrors, at the perfect height and spacing.

 

Lowes has 2" wide aluminum strips (1/8th thick ... maybe 3/16ths) for about $10.

 

Anyway, it should be plenty strong enough. The lights are small and weigh very little.

 

FWIW The light manufacturer recommends that lights NOT be mounted near your line of sight.

Where you mount your lights is extremely important, as well as aiming the units.

Too high and the light will bounce right back at you and you’ll be trying to look

through the beam instead of down the road. Too low and they’ll skim across the

rocks on the roadway and not illuminate correctly where you are trying to see.

Fortunately, the bumper on most vehicles works out perfectly. Mounting right

under or on top of it is ideal. ......

 

 

 

I have one pair of lights mounted in the area you're talking about... simple bolt with a locknut on the inside. Had to bend the mounting bracket a bit to fit the contour of the fairing, but that's not all that difficult to do if you practice a little patience. Doesn't seem to wobble around or vibrate that I can tell, although my lights are probably significantly lighter/smaller than what you got. Notice that I have white LED H3s in place of the standard 55w halogens. They aren't all that spectacularly bright but they do cast some general light forward and make it more visible. Let me know if you want some more pics.

 

That is about where I was looking to mount mine.

I was going to use that same surface but put the lights as far forward as possible.

My intent is for light down the road, the more the better, hence the HID bulb replacements.

 

 

 

I am trying to avoid the appearance of a single blob of light. I want it to appear as 3 distinct points of light. I do not want to be mistaken to be a cage with the HI beams on that is very far away. For this I need to keep the driving lights farther away from the headlight.

Edited May 5, 2011 by Flyinfool

[twigg]

There are a number of reasons why the manufacturer can safely be ignored.

 

First, they are probably concerned about "back scatter", which in a decent light shouldn't happen .... and won't happen if they are concealed by the mirrors.

 

Pretty much every piece of advice about aux. lighting from the LDRiders says "as high and wide as possible". The mirrors are pretty wide on the VR, and aren't really in your line of sight ... ie ... you have to deliberately look into them.

 

Finally, that configuration gives the best "triangle" of light .... car drivers have to work quite hard to miss you.

 

All you can do is find out what suits you best.

[Flyinfool]

Last night I started to work on this and what I found is that the faring plastic is REALLY thin in that area. My faring already has some cracked plastic in that area also. So adding more stress to an already weak area is a no go.

There is no nearby metal framework to work from to build a mount hidden there.

 

So on to plan 2.....

 

Since I already have 2 Wolo Bad Boy horns I figure that I no longer need to also have the stock horns still hooked up. I am making some brackets to mount the new lights onto the old horn mounts. This still keeps the lights approximately where I wanted them, they'll just be 2 inches lower.

 

I also found out that my H3 HID bulbs will not quite fit into my H3 lights with out some mods to the housing.

Edited May 6, 2011 by Flyinfool

[twigg]

That sounds like an excellent compromise.

 

I might look at that idea myself

 

I looked. Not a bad spot. I want mine higher if possible, but it's a decent location. If you have the factory horns you could also probably rotate them through 90 degrees and mount the lights there with them. My fairing is off so I don't know if there would be clearance.

Edited May 6, 2011 by twigg