1980 SG Back From The Dead – AKA Dad’s bike

Mike G said:

I had a weird one this week. Went to start up the bike to ride to work in the morning and the bike started fine and the charging system is working perfect but I had no headlight, none, no low beam or high beam but the high beam indicator was on when the headlight switch was on high or low. I would have expected if one burnt out the other would still work. What the hell!

Turns out the Walmart H6024 I just put in went bad in 20 miles. When I checked the resistance between all three terminals it was clear the ground had broken internally. The reason the high beam indicator was on is it was being backfed through the filaments and through the indicator bulb to ground. Anybody care to guess which Asian country the Sylvania bulb was manufactured in? I found an old US made GE H6024 in my old parts so at least I have a headlight, we’ll see how long this one lasts.

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Well, I'm told that these old XS650s do vibrate a little..... Having said that, I haven't had much trouble with headlight or tail/signal or brake light bulbs, so you may just have gotten a bad one.

However, I DID have a ton of trouble with instrument illumination bulbs until I switched over to LEDs from Super Bright LEDs. (www.superbrightleds.com)

The old school incandescent bulbs seemed to last somewhere between an hour and a week - and then they always died. The LED replacements went in a month or so ago and are still lighting up my tach. I have at least one dead incandescent in the speedo so I will swap it over to LEDs on the weekend. Here is what I ordered for my 1976 XS650C (and NOTE - later bikes use different bulbs and I do not know when the switch occurred). I think it cost $18.65 CDN for a 10-pack of bulbs, which is enough for 2.5 bikes, as each instrument has two illumination sockets. A full set of LEDs for your instruments would require..about 7 bulbs I think.

For some unexplained reason, I have never burnt out or replaced one of the warning lights (high beam, brake light, neutral light etc.).


BA9s LED Bulb - 4 LED - BA9s Bulb Warm White 90 Degree 12VAC - 10 Pack
See what's included in this kit

Same thing happened to me .I replaced my original headlight last year with h6024 from walmart and it went bad after a short time. I puled it out and it had a crack on the back from the center to the edge that looked like a seam from the mold. Replaced it with another from the auto parts store and it's right again.

I haven't had much to post as the bikes been running fine but after the charging problems I have had in the past I decided to add a voltmeter to keep an eye on charging voltage while I'm riding. I had previously removed the RLU so there was a dash light that had no function so I decided to try adding the voltmeter to the stock dash, a stealth voltmeter if you will. The white lens came out of the dash without a struggle and a little work with a Dremel had the black plastic removed from behind the clear dash face. I found some digital voltmeters on Amazon that were 5 units of different colors for ten bucks which fit my frugal sensibilities just fine. It fit almost perfect in the empty space behind the dash with some foam insulation pieces to hold it in place and I soldered the meter ground and sensing wires to a lamp base from a burned out instrument bulb and plugged that into the RLU bulb socket. I then made a fused jumper wire to connect from the RLU wire (now feeding the meter) to the battery positive lead and wired the meter power wire into the brown wire so it would come on with the key switch, all nice and tidy and reversible if I (or a future owner) wants to return to stock. I made a small "hood" from some scrap plastic I had laying around to help keep the sun off as it's not bright enough to read when the sun is shining on it. There are still times when the sun shines from behind and over my shoulder I have to hold the shadow of my hand over it to see it but most of the time I can read it and it's acceptable for my purpose.



For $2 and a little time I'm pleased with the results.

Looks very snazzy!

Great idea! I have been pondering on how to sneak in a voltmeter without changing the look of the bike...

Thought some of you might like to see the original "Dad's bike". Before he got back into motorcycling and bought the first of his XS's, Dad's first bike was a Norton Atlas.



It was also my first motorcycle, or at least the first one I sat on. This is a picture of me and my older sister sitting on the Norton in the kitchen of my parent's first house circa 1967.

Mike G said:

Thought some of you might like to see the original "Dad's bike". Before he got back into motorcycling and bought the first of his XS's, Dad's first bike was a Norton Atlas.

It was also my first motorcycle, or at least the first one I sat on. This is a picture of me and my older sister sitting on the Norton in the kitchen of my parent's first house circa 1967.

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WOW - a bike in the kitchen!!

Either your Mom was a fun lady....or you grew up in a broken home Mike.

Mom was very tolerant...and you KNOW that old brit bike HAD to have dripped oil on her floor.