Changing Headlamps

So, you burn a headlamp and need to replace it, right? Well, Forum wisdom says that as soon as one burns out, the second is soon to follow, so change both.

Yeah, right. :glare:

Following is my tutorial of how to change the bulbs. I'll start by suggesting the appropriate tools: Your hands should be all that you need, however, I've added some others, including the liberal use of excerpts from my new book, Wrenching, Cussing and You (Random House, with preface by Mrs. Nut).

First, just go ahead and strip the front end off, cuz as soon as your release the spring retainer on the right headlamp, it will slap back causing the bulb to shatter into a bazillion pieces inside the sealed nacelle. Here, I would suggest a selection from chapter seven of my new book, wherein one spurts The King's Proclamation preceded by a maternal reference. Repeat several times to induce the proper rise of blood pressure. If there is a convenient, undecorated wall nearby, punch it. Immediately following the punch, flip to chapter 2 of my book and choose any of the 38 suggestions. Apply BandAids to the bloody knuckles and apologize to your neighbor for sending their kitty back over the fence via your boot.

Here, you can see what the front end will look like after stripping the bodywork.



Oh, goody! Look at all of the sparkley bits of glass! This should be so fun to remedy!



Quick! Flip to chapter 12! You're gonna need it next! Can anyone guess what this is? Hint: It's made of the finest snake **** on Earth!



Give up? Here's another clue...



Still can't figure it out? Here, lemme help...



For those of you who are reading challenged, let me sum up this whole evening consumed by the original task of merely changing the headlamps:



I'll be signing my book at NAFO.

Nice work Tim. Looks like something I would do....but wouldn't it just be easier to ride with no lights or if one got desperate you could always just use some race tape and tape on a couple flashlights.....and that bike with all the tupperware off the top seems to make me feel somewhat queazy inside...PM. <>< :lol:

Holy Sheep Dip! :blink:

Was this before or after the case of beer?

How the hell did you manage to break the arm? The bulb I can see, but that's some pretty sturdy "metal" in the w/s arm. h34r: As far as the knuckles thing, I had my neighbor return my ratchet to me last year, after it flew thru the garage wall and landed in his yard. Just remember, never hit a wall stud, I heard they do more than bruise knuckles.

Owe...Tiyim...Tiyim...Tiyim! You purdy funnie feller. Eye iz hopin' yewer happy cuz sinced reedin' thet en laffin soe hard et muh riyibs er hurtin, en Eye thot theys all mendid, en stuff.

Seriously, I'm sorry that your bulb exchange turned into an MM2-like project. I thought I was the only backyard mechaninc who could turn a 20 minute job into a partial rebuild plus waiting time for ordering parts. Thankfully your have the WABS to ride. I feel for you, bro, I really do!

As an aside, now would be a perfect opportunity to make some new arms to change the angle of the windshield as it operates.

First, I want to say that when one bulb goes THE OTHER GOES TOO! In fact, I burned out a bulb on my 05 and I (smartly?) purchased another so that I could do them both. After the first was done I turned the bike on to check to see if it worked... it did and the other was out. Damned thing burned out in between changing the first and testing it! :dribble:

As for the photos above... I have had my 05 torn down to that point and I feel your pain... without the extra *** of buying the replacement part! Stripped the sucker down to fix the burned out lights in the instrument cluster. (Yes, I did them ALL since I was in there.)

That sucks... sorry to hear about it.

I would be riding around by now, with all those sparkly bits of glass right where they lay, until I needed to change the instrument panel bulbs. Might as well do them too, and screw up some more ****, while you're bumbling around in there.

One more bit of advice: HID headlight conversion.

And I thought that type of thing only happened to me.

TWN, I'm guessing you have a "Murphy" (and, hence, his "law") somewhere in your ancestry?

Sorry for your trouble...

...somehow it makes me feel good though that I'm not the only dufus around here that makes a mistake can have a bad mechanical day.

...and not the only one that can yell "doggone it" and hurt the nearest cat.

Ouch!

I feel your pain.

Sounds like we're both working with the same set of coping tools

That's a bummer. I experience that each time I wrench on anything. I'm afraid to put air in the tires and fuel in the thing thinking it might turn out to be a half day job.

I always take the time I estimate it SHOULD take, I then multiply that by 2.5 and that's usually the rule of thumb for getting the job done.

Makes me want to take the thing in for a bulb change...

FJRBluesman said:

I always take the time I estimate it SHOULD take, I then multiply that by 2.5 and that's usually the rule of thumb for getting the job done.

Click to expand...

You really should be more scientific --- multiply by PI.

I'm sorry to laugh at your misfortune but that was a funny write-up. I thought I was the only one who could make a seemingly easy job go so wrong. Thanks for sharing.

evilmedic13 said:

How the hell did you manage to break the arm? The bulb I can see, but that's some pretty sturdy "metal" in the w/s arm. h34r:

Click to expand...

Actually it is made of super-cooled cheese whiz. My father in law used to refer to this crap as "pot metal" (no idea what the reference was to, but not a doobie reference as far as I know). When you open up one of these arms like Tim and I have done, you can see that the inside is mostly air in the cast cheese whiz. Doesn't take much of a ham-hand at all to snap one of these!

And that bolt that you can see in the picture is installed so that it has to be backed out towards the instrument cluster which won't allow you to remove it, without removing the instruments. As I didn't want to diassemble my whole bike, I just sawed off the head of that bolt and extracted it to the left. The new replacement bolt was installed the right way - with the nut end towards the instruments.

Thanks for the memories TWN!

FastJoyRide said:

evilmedic13 said:

How the hell did you manage to break the arm? The bulb I can see, but that's some pretty sturdy "metal" in the w/s arm. h34r:

Click to expand...

Actually it is made of super-cooled cheese whiz. My father in law used to refer to this crap as "pot metal" (no idea what the reference was to, but not a doobie reference as far as I know). When you open up one of these arms like Tim and I have done, you can see that the inside is mostly air in the cast cheese whiz. Doesn't take much of a ham-hand at all to snap one of these!

And that bolt that you can see in the picture is installed so that it has to be backed out towards the instrument cluster which won't allow you to remove it, without removing the instruments. As I didn't want to diassemble my whole bike, I just sawed off the head of that bolt and extracted it to the left. The new replacement bolt was installed the right way - with the nut end towards the instruments.

Thanks for the memories TWN!

Click to expand...

Exactly so, FJR. That arm is made from the lightest weight cheeze whiz (or snake ****, as I call it) on the planet. It's also quite porous. Further, Yamaha used some kind of green, wasabi lookin' Loctite on the bolt, increasing the amount of force required to loosen by 100 fold. As I held the allen wrench in place and began to barely exert pressure on the crescent wrench, the arm snapped. ****. I can only surmise that 58,000 miles of constant wind pressure against the screen may have had some bearing on the failure.

At this point, I'm quite leery of the metallurgy used throughout this bike. This is the second failure I've experienced - the first being the top triple tree clamp:



Same scenario here too: Apply just the slightest pressure and POP! There were two rather large voids at the break in the clamp and though my dealer returned the clamp to Yamaha, no report was ever returned.

Oh well, at least I get to clean up my rat's nest of added wiring...

7xray said:

FJRBluesman said:

I always take the time I estimate it SHOULD take, I then multiply that by 2.5 and that's usually the rule of thumb for getting the job done.

Click to expand...

You really should be more scientific --- multiply by PI.

Click to expand...

Cherry or Apple?

Aww the 'nut broke sumpin. Guess karma finally caught up with yer wise *** :blum: :haha:

Nice write up. Gotta love swearing without swearin :rofl:

:jester:

Yep, I knew it. This bike sucks. I'm gonna go get a Buell.

GunMD said:

Yep, I knew it. This bike sucks. I'm gonna go get a Bull.

Click to expand...

Whatcha gonna do with that? Gonna look awfull silly all geared up in yer biker suit and helmet on 'em ain't ya?

:jester: