Hitchcocks Forum

Hello, I have recently bought a 2003 Royal Enfield 500 bullet es (Indian export) and have noticed that the headlights only work when the engine is running, is this normal please?

Yes. They have direct lighting, the headlight is powered by AC power directly from the alternator. The sidelights, flashers and brake light are powerd from the battery. Actually works quite well, the onyl real downside is if the engine conks out in the dark, you have no headlight.

If you desperately wanted the headlight to work with the engine off you could replace the AC headlight supply regulator with a normal reg/rectifier and add a second battery somewhere. It is also possible to convert the electrics on these models to all DC lighting by routeing the full output of the 4 wire alternator through the reg/rectifier, if you have the Pete Snidal Bullet manual (our hosts might still have copies) it explains how to do this.

A.

stinkwheel wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 05, 2020 2:25 pm

Yes. They have direct lighting, the headlight is powered by AC power directly from the alternator. The sidelights, flashers and brake light are powerd from the battery. Actually works quite well, the onyl real downside is if the engine conks out in the dark, you have no headlight.