Topic: CB350F headlight woes

[Evel E.]

Hello,

I rode a recently acquired '72 CB350 Four over to a friend's house the other night.  I'd had it about a week.  When it came time to leave, the lights wouldn't work, neither the high beam nor the low beam.  The high beam indicator light did work.

I got around to investigating it and it turns out the bulb had died, both filaments!  I found that I had juice from both the low beam and high beam lines in the socket.  I plugged in a spare car headlight and it worked.  Plugged in the old headlight and it doesn't.  Has anyone ever seen this happen before?  I'm worried that I might have bigger electrical problems here.

The headlight is some kind of weird sealed beam with soldered on tabs that are used to attach to the rim.  I have a spare Hella motorcycle headlight that I've run in my Norton, but I don't see how I can get it to work.  Are these Stanley Honda bulbs unobtainable?  If I can get something to work, I'm leary of the stock electrical system being able to handle a 50/55 Watt, the stock is 35/50 Watts.

-Eric

[oldbiker]

Juice on the sockets is good. Just make sure that the earth return connection to frame is clean and sound.

[MikeDeB]

Hello,

I rode a recently acquired '72 CB350 Four over to a friend's house the other night.  I'd had it about a week.  When it came time to leave, the lights wouldn't work, neither the high beam nor the low beam.  The high beam indicator light did work.

I got around to investigating it and it turns out the bulb had died, both filaments!  I found that I had juice from both the low beam and high beam lines in the socket.  I plugged in a spare car headlight and it worked.  Plugged in the old headlight and it doesn't.  Has anyone ever seen this happen before?  I'm worried that I might have bigger electrical problems here.

The headlight is some kind of weird sealed beam with soldered on tabs that are used to attach to the rim.  I have a spare Hella motorcycle headlight that I've run in my Norton, but I don't see how I can get it to work.  Are these Stanley Honda bulbs unobtainable?  If I can get something to work, I'm leary of the stock electrical system being able to handle a 50/55 Watt, the stock is 35/50 Watts.

-Eric

For what it's worth, both of my CB750s have Hella halogen headlight fixtures installed (with H4 bulbs) and no problems with the charging system keeping up.

[bryanj]

If the 350 is the same as the 400 its a small car size unit not the standard car size

[bryanj]

You are quite right my memory is getting worse. I knew it was smaller like some of the Yamahas. Cibie used to do  a special fittment for it as i remember but that was some 25 years ago! I know that an ebay seller(i buy-i sell) has listed some yamaha sealed beam units but not sure if they will fit

[aliengirl]

i just installed a Candlepower H4 headlight in my CB400F. it was supposed to be 6 3/8" like the the stock one but i found it to be a bit smaller, leaving a small gap all around. i split open some vacuume tubing and wrapped it around the edge then dropped in the bucket for a fairly tight fit though not perfect. i may tweak it some more. kinda waiting to see if my charging system will support the 45w bulb or not. i do have an on/off switch for my headlight so it's not draining the battery during daylight hours. i'll let ya know how it goes...