For the last month my headlight bulb has been burning out really quickly. Today I swapped a month old H4 bulb from my car and the bulb burnt out after I went about 200ft. It burnt out while I was braking and then after i made a turn I switched to the highbeam and it blew out too. The brake was no longer applied though. I turned it off and parked it and then went back out with a multimeter to see what was going on but after I put the ignition key back in the on position the various guage indicators turned on for a second and then immediately turned off and now I can't get anything electrical to respond. No fuses blew unless there is another fuse box besides the one under the right handlebar. Any ideas what is going on?

 

Sounds like a bad earth. There is a main fuse (30 amp) on the left hand side (sitting on the bike), remove the side cover, and its just under the seat near the back of the tank.

 

When you install the bulb, your not touching the glass of the bulb right? Cause the fingerprints that you leave on the glass can cause them to burn out.

 

I only handle them by the metal ring and the contacts. I'll check all the grounds and the 30amp fuse later today.

 

The bike turned on this morning without touching anything which was really weird. I checked the voltage running to the low beams and it ranged from 13.1volts up to 18.8volts depending on rpm. I'm guessing 18 volts would be enough to burn up the light. Do I need to be buying motorcycle specific H4's or does it sound like my voltage regulator is trashed? Thanks for the tips.

 

I don't see how you're getting 18 volts from anything unless its a dewalt power drill. I think you've got a bad reg/rect. that's not cutting charging current from the alternator. The regulator/rectifier, or more technically correct rectifier/regulator is supposed to dump charging amps once the battery reaches around 14.5 - 15 volts max. anything more than that will certainly begin blowing electrical components. And you can't get more volts at a component than what the battery voltage is. Do a voltage test at the battery. Start the bike and the battery voltage should drop to around 11 volts or so, assuming that the unloaded battery voltage is between 12 and 13.5 volts, and then slowly start climbing back up again while idling until it reaches around 14.5 - 15 volts or so. If it keeps climbing, the regulator portion of the rect/reg. has gone bad and the whole component will need to be replaced.