Whether you ride off-road or on-road, proper lighting for your dirt bike is important. When the sun goes down, you need good lighting to see and make your presence known. Since most dirt bikes don’t come with lights, you need to install lights yourself to make it street legal and safe.
This might sound a bit intimidating, but trust me you don’t need to be a connoisseur of electrics for this task. You don’t even need batteries since the light will be powered by a magneto and regulator.
In this article, I’ll tell you how to put lights on a dirt bike without a battery. Hop on!
Mounting lights on a dirt bike without a battery
Generally, dirt bikes that don’t have electric start are not equipped with batteries. So how’d we light up our lights without the direct connection to some kind of power source? By changing the magneto’s alternating current to direct current using a regulator.
For that, we’ll need the proper tools. Without the right equipment, we’d be stuck and might damage our precious bike. Don’t want that, do we?
So, here is the list of all the things you need for mounting lights:
Required tools to put lights on a dirt bike
- Spanner
- Bolts
- Plastic-layered insulated wires (Black and red)
- A pair of pliers
- Driller
- Bullet connectors
- LED spotlight
- Handlebar switch
- Rectifier
Now that we have all of the tools ready, let’s get down to business to defeat the darkness.
Simple procedure to put lights on a dirt bike without a battery
First thing first, your safety should always come before anything else. Make sure the bike is completely turned off and mounted on a raised surface. It should be raised properly and securely to avoid any kind of accidents. Take another person’s help if needed.
Sounds like a trivial suggestion? You don’t know how many people often make that mistake. So please, remember to be careful.
Now, assuming you have all the tools I’ve mentioned ready near you, let’s get started.
Step-1: Unmount the Seat and the Gas Tank
Grab the spanner because you need to turn some nuts and bolts to remove the seat and gas tank. You’ll see some yellow wires underneath the gas tank. Unmounting the gas tank and seat will give us access to the path through which the wires will reach the light from the magneto. Do not rush. Remove one part after another.
After removing the seat and gas tank, place them on the ground nearby and we’ll move on to the next step.
Step-2: Mount the LED spotlight properly on the dirt bike
The key to getting the optimum performance from the light is by mounting it properly in place. For that, you’ll need to find a place in front of your bike that is suitable and high enough to ensure that the light falls equally all over the path ahead of you. Then use the bolts to tighten it up and hold it in place.
Make sure to get a good quality LED light that works well even when the environment turns really foggy and rainy.
Step-3: Fix the Handlebar switch
Next, we are going to fit the handlebar switch. You’ll need it to turn the light on/off whenever you please. As the name suggests, you can fit it on either side of the handlebars. Anywhere as long as it’s within your reach. Adding a double handlebar switch will give you the advantage of adding another light on the back, if necessary.
Step-4: Placing the Rectifier
After mounting the handlebar switch, we’re gonna place the rectifier. This is an important step. The magneto is the main power source that produces an alternating current. With the rectifier, we’ll convert that alternating current(AC) into a 12-volt direct current (DC) and the current will flow towards the light to illuminate it.
The best place to install it is at the bottom of the gas tank. Some bikes even have holes on the frame under that, where you can place the rectifier too.
When you’re done placing the rectifier, pin it in place with some bolts. Finally, you can take the gas tank and put it back in its place.
Step-5: Connect the magneto to the rectifier
Remember the wires we found after removing the gas tank? So, these two yellow wires come from the magneto. Your job is to connect these two wires and the connector block attached to the rectifier with a black and a red wire (to remove the wire coverings, use the pliers. Not your teeth).
The negative or the ground would go to the negative of the light and the positive or power wire of the rectifier goes to the positive of the switch. And the negative of the switch goes to the positive of light. I know this might be confusing, in that case using a diagram will clear things up for you.
Step-6: Connecting the light
After connecting the magneto and the rectifier, it is now time to connect the wires to the light. In case you are wondering, now is the time to put the bullet connectors from our little list to use.
The handlebar has three different wires. A black, a blue and a brown one. And each of them has its purpose. You need to connect the black and blue wire to the wire coming from the rectifier and the brown wire with the light.
Finally, sort all the wires with the bullet connectors, and you’re almost done mounting light on your dirt bike without a battery! Yay!
Step-7: Re-install and check everything out
Now that you’re done mounting the light, it is time to re-mount and fasten everything back up. Find the spanner and fasten the seat after mounting it again. Check every nut and bolt once again just to be sure. Disable the stand and slowly lower the bike from the raised platform.
Fire up the engine and flick the handlebar switch and see how the light you’ve mounted comes to life. This will surely brighten your day up. You’ve successfully put lights on a dirt bike without any battery. You should be proud.
To sum up
So, now you know how to put lights on a dirt bike without a battery. I hope this write-up helps you as I tried to explain everything as clearly as possible. Just be cautious since mounting lights on a bike needs precision and focus. Don’t shy away from asking for help.
If you follow all the steps carefully, there will be nothing standing on your way to go for some fun off-roading in the night. Not even darkness.
