Cafe/Street Fighter Lights

[architect]

Anyone have experiencing building bikes with custom headlights sourced from eBay/Alliexpress and getting the bike safetied? All lights require DOT certification and that limits the selection quite a bit. Anyone have experience getting a custom bike safetied and any concerns around lights/signals?

Thanks.

 

[Brian P]

What do you mean by "custom bike" ... Presumably you mean a bike that was at some point a standard production bike, built by a recognised major manufacturer, with a normal VIN and associated paperwork.

No matter what it is, it has to pass this inspection: Law Document English View See schedule 6.

The tricky bit is the interpretation.

There is nothing in Schedule 6 that discusses what standards the lights have to meet, other than requiring that they not be marked "not for highway use".

The word "prescribed" as the first word of section 6.1 is a problem. Prescribed by what?

The words "correctly" and "properly" appear. What defines "correct"? What defines "proper"? Is a microscopic tiny LED that turns on when it's supposed to and turns off when it's supposed to, "correct" and "proper"? (I would suggest, "no".) Or does it have to be the exact original-equipment part number that was supplied by the original vehicle manufacturer with the correct original-equipment bulb in it? (I would suggest, that's probably going overboard.) Or can it be a substituted part that functions similarly - but what's that mean? DOT-marked? Or just general approximation? Or that all too rare commodity, "common sense"?

There is a performance standard for headlight aiming, but not for how bright or how dim it can be.

AFAICT the custom bike crowd have their go-to mechanics who take care of this paperwork to make the, ahem, "issues" go away.

I would have a friendly chat with the mechanic that you propose to do the safety inspection, before you commit to a course of action, and then obviously give that mechanic the business when you are ready. Start with whichever shop that you normally deal with. If that is unproductive, track down the shops that the bobber/chopper etc crowd uses. I don't want to name names, but it's not hard to figure out.

 

[Mad Mike]

A lot of these come with DOT markings. Beware DOT is a self certification - anyone can slap that on a product and many from China do.

There are two schools of mechanics -- licenced, can write a safety, and unlicenced, can repair motorcycles. Most powersports techs are unlicenced, if they are offering safeties they inspect then get the paperwork done at a nearby autoshop by a licenced mechanic.

The unlicenced MC mechanics never want to lose that arrangement AND so they can be sticklers, they also don't have the same training and understanding of the safety regs.

Find an autoshop that does bike safeties and as long as you have lights, fenders, and other safety stuff that was originally equipped with the bike you should be fine. That includes all safety switches (side stand, neutral, and any factory clutch or ignition lockout), fenders with the same or better throw off protection, chain guard, all lights, speedo, etc. Also beware of frame mods that remove anything.

 

[architect]

Thanks guys for the info. I must have misread somewhere else that says lights must be DOT certified. Yes, I'm just cosmetically modifying a standard production bike which will include lights and mirrors. Now I can be more more confident in moving ahead in selecting parts.