Headlight Safety Relay

[MacMcMacmac]

Leaving a friend's home in Ottawa last night, I remarked how well the turnsignals lit up the amber signs along the road leading from her house. It was not until I pulled onto the highway that I finally realized, damn, I have no headlight. Now I know why that car I passed in the city turned on his high beams, oh well...

I guess 400km of riding yesterday did the low beam in with vibration. It only occurs to me now that if I still had the safety relay I might have never noticed the low beam was kaput, since I have mini gauges with idiot lights nestled securely in the bottom of the case, due also to vibration. This leads me to think that far from being a help, the relay may pose something of a risk, since if you do not know the high beam is on, you now have no redundancy in case it goes out too. I don't think trying to follow another vehicle home through the country is an adequate back up plan. I guess I'll have to pack a spare bulb from now on. A stock gauge cluster might be in the works too. The mini gauges look nice and are sturdy, but I have never been satisfied with the needle action, and the tach never reads above 5000rpm, probably also due to vibes messing with the action. Question: Will any year XS gauges work on any year of XS? Some of the earlier models are more attractive to my eye.

Old bikes eh? Always something. On a positive note, the charging system is working splendidly, 14+V from 3000 rpm on. I might hazard throwing back in the 55/60W lamp now that it is up to snuff, although the 35/40W did a pretty good job in the halogen upgrade headlight.

 

[gggGary]

yes any year gauges have the same cable connections and ratios. About any other older yammy for that matter. mounting points and wiring vary.

 

[MacMcMacmac]

Hmmm. A nice set of properly vibe-isolated Seca 550 gauges would give me an OEM voltmeter. The fuel gauge would be somewhat out of place. As long as the 650 redline was adhered to, it might be a plan. Maybe a CYCOM!

 

[5twins]

I run 55/60w H-4 lights in both mine and have never had charging issues because of it. I think it may drag the charging output down a bit more at idle, but it's fine once revved up (low to mid 14's).

The thing you removed is the RLU - reserve lighting unit. What's normally referred to as the safety relay is the auto-on light relay that's mounted together with the starter cut-out relay .....

Your '83 has a couple more easily removed relays. You can see the clutch lever one above and there's also one for the sidestand. In particular, I recommend doing away with the sidestand one. If it or it's switch go bad, and they sometimes do, it kills the motor and the bike won't run. The clutch one isn't as bad, it only stops the starter motor from operating. The bike will still run and kick start.

 

[MacMcMacmac]

Yes, The sidestand relay was jumpered years ago due to a failed switch. The p.o. jumpered the clutch switch after he put clubman's on. I think he was trying to find the reason for the non-running of his bike. The p.o. to him was me, as I have bought the exact same XS three times. It's a sickness. Agreed on the proper terminology for the Reserve Lighting Unit. Mine resides in a cupboard somewhere until I can find a use for it. I was trying to figure out how to use one of these redundant relays to actuate an aftermarket horn, but I kind of lost interest.

 

[jetmechmarty]

I attended a bike night function a few years ago and had a low beam filament failure. It was dark and a 40 minute drive on a lonely crooked road to get home. IIRC, when low beam is selected, the high beam gets low current in the fail mode. So, my filament fail light was on, my high beam function was normal and low mode kept me visible. It's a good system by design.