Featured Led Headlights For Thunderbird (achieved!)

Hi All,

I just wanted to show you guys that after many weeks of ordering and sending back LED bulbs for my Thunderbird Commander, I finally found a set that work.

I ordered many bulbs, one was such a wide diameter that it wouldn't even fit inside the headlamp mirror assembly. Others would fit in, but had such a bulk at the rear the mirror assembly wouldn't fit back into the headlight bowl. Others that came with external power packs that I couldn't easily fit without disassembling half the bike. And yet another one that fit, went back together, but that didn't work as it should do with high/low beam illuminating the wrong parts of the road, due to a very strange triangular shaped bulb.

Anyway, the bulbs that finally worked, are these ones from amazon:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B071RBGQ6G/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apip_f9GGTxW6klp1a

They fit easily, went back together, have a brilliantly white light, the orientation and lighting from the bulb is as it should be, have a 3 year warranty, and best of all, the visibility at night is astonishing.

I had originally set out to just change the very yellowy light that the stock bulbs put out as a cosmetic improvement. And this can be seen below from the picture I took having changed just one bulb below. But hadn't expected to get a significant improvement in night time riding. Hopefully the attached pic (which I don't think does justice to how good it actually looked) shows it off a little.

Cheers,
Dave

 

Yeah, really pleased with them still, for the first few months, I was paranoidly checking the lights low/high beam before riding out to make sure they were still working, but as time has gone on, I've gotten used to trusting that they work.

Exactly as you say, it's a bit of a squeeze (but unlike most, actually DO fit!) and the difference, is quite amazing. Really pleased with them.

In case you haven't I also changed the sidelight bulbs with LED ones, that was much easier, and makes a much smaller difference of course. I just picked those up from Halfords for about a tenner ... quickly looking, I think it might have been these ones:
http://www.halfords.com/motoring/bu...s/halfords-501-filament-led-upgrade-bulbs-x-2

But do check that's the correct fitting, I don't remember for sure. But it's a super easy plug'n'play replacement.

Dave

 

Still using them, no issues, still work great, massive improvement over standard bulbs.

I see the link above no longer works, but from my order history, attached is what it was at the time. There is one on amazon now branded as NightEye, but they're no longer available, but I found them here:
https://www.wish.com/product/5833f3...ABEgIN0PD_BwE&hide_login_modal=true&share=web

They appear the same except for the branding. Best of luck! Let me know if you get them and how you get on.

 

Umm, I wouldn't know to be honest. Standard only has one headlight, so ... unless it's smaller (which I'd guess it wouldn't be, I'd GUESS if anything it'd be bigger), then it should do.

I'd suggest you do what I did, and order like, half a dozen of different ones from amazon, then send back the ones that don't fit . I mean, that's literally what I did, but think I went through about 4 or 5 before I found the one that worked.

 

If memory serves me ... typically they give the overall length of the unit, and you can measure (or perhaps look up) the depth of your headlight bowl and compare.

There were a couple of 'gotchas' however. I think where a couple of my first attempts went wrong, because the back of the unit was too wide - and so snagged on the sides of the bowl and therefore wouldn't go back far enough. And one (or some) had the cable came out of the bottom of the unit, which meant that whilst it should fit with space spare, the stiffness of the cable again meant that it couldn't sit down far enough in the bowl.

If you find a parts listing for both your bike and the Commander, you might find that the part numbers for each headlight bowl are the same.

 

@TEZ 217 I believe it should do. But note that I didn't buy mine from Wish (I bought on Amazon), and they are branded differently. So I can't guarantee anything.

But all of the ones I bought at the time from amazon, I think were all sets of 2, which makes sense, since it's supposed to be an upgrade kit.

 

Oh nice, they do look SUBSTANTIALLY smaller than the ones I got. The main bulk with the LEDs when I was buying them, was for fins on the back for heat dissipation. I wonder if they just don't get as hot as they used to, or whether they can just withstand the heat without needing giant heat sinks ...