What's different about a 2002 headlight?

[Pacifictime]

I have been looking at LED headlights because the stock headlight is so anemic. All the after market LED headlights I have seen say that they do not fit 2002 Sportsters. Does anyone know what is different about the 2002 Sporty headlight?

[hillcat]

Most likely has to do with the size of the bucket. The LED's use a big finned heat sink that takes up a bit of room.
Look for a used Sportster headlight from a different year.
I ended up using a 2000 softail headlight bucket on my FXR which would fit the LED headlight.

[TriNortchopz]

Found this for Evo Sportsters, but nothing specific for 2002:

Headlight

Early model Sportsters (1990-older) used a sealed-beam, 5-3/4“ headlamp. In 1991, they were supplied with a headlamp lens (bulb housing) which uses a replaceable bulb known as an H4 version. The supplied bulbs were rated at 55w for low beam and 60w for high beam. Modern bulb model 9003 is also physically equivalent and may have the H4 designation as well. Various brands and types of bulbs are available in the H4/9003 base fitting including new LED versions. However, not all LED units are sized & positioned correctly for the H4/9003 lens, so some testing of the physical depth (both inside the lens and behind the lens) is necessary to proper fitting. It is important to obtain LED bulbs that are compatible with the headlight housing lens design - It is important in order to produce an appropriate light beam pattern similar to the original motorcycle style projection.

The low beam usually throws a more narrow light, a relatively shorter distance. The front-most element in the bulb has a small reflector built into the bulb to throw the produced light upwards against the lens reflector in order that the light will be projected downward onto the road surface. The high beam (produced by a second element closer to the connector that throws light in a 360° pattern) produces a broader beam and is redirected (by the entire reflector) to throw light farther and wider down the roadway.

Typical (recent) HD wiring practice is to supply the low-beam power on a Yellow Wire and the high-beam power on a White Wire. These wires come from the Left Handlebar, Hi/Lo Headlight Switch. With the introduction of the BCM in 2014, the handlebar switches are digital and communicate their status to the BCM over the CANbus. The BCM uses BLUE/Yellow & BLUE/White Wires to supply power to the Lo & Hi headlight filaments.

See this PDF file at the Candlepower brand website for some additional information about H4 & 9003(HB2) specifications. Also an interesting read that shows reflection diagrams is THIS WEB PAGE LINK regarding H4 vs 9003 bulbs.

http://sportsterpedia.com/doku.php/techtalk:evo:elec03

[CycleFreak]

I put a cheap LED bulb from Mid USA in my 98 Sportster and it fits well and works much better than I'd expected. However, I gutted the rat's nest of wiring from the bucket first. As the bike came from the factory, there was zero room for anything other than a standard bulb. Judging from the pic of your bike in your profile, I don't assume you'll have that issue.

[Pacifictime]

Thanks for the information about H4's and my headlight bucket is full of wires. So there's not much room for a LED bulb. When I was building this bike, I wasn't sure what to cut out and what to leave. I didn't want to cut out something I might decide to keep later, for example the tach. So I just bundled the wires and plug for the tach and crammed it inside the headlight bucket. Now that the bike has been done for several years and where I like it, it might be time to revisit getting rid of a lot of the wire rat's nest.
I have used higher wattage H4's but they don't last as long and I think that's what happened. The bright bulb burned out and I put in the low watt backup.
I was riding home from El Diablo and over the Altamont Pass in the middle of the night, coming into the SF Bay area it was so dark and raining with heavy traffic and I couldn't see the road. It was damn scary.

[farmall]

Having more than one light is a good idea however you might choose to do that. Any bulb can die at any time.

If your bucket is painted you could drill vent holes where rain won't be much issue (bottom etc) to permit cooling and use (I do anyway) silicone dielectric grease on all exposed conductors with a spray of CRC or other heavy duty protectant on exposed metal. My FXR is down for freshening up and I'll do something similar with whatever light I install.

[Pacifictime]

In the past I built some auxiliary lights using MR 16 LED bulbs and cheap Walmart housings. I got the idea here http://www.vulcanforums.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=95673 and you can see what they looked like on my bike here http://amotorcyclediary.blogspot.com...ng-lights.html. Now I mounted a Harbor Freight LED (sorry no photo) but when I'm not taking a long trip and don't have aux lights mounted, it sure would be nice to have more light.