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HID Conversion complete: Install notes and impressions
From the posts on t-rat.net, it doesn't appear as though there is much interest in HID conversions for the classic bikes. For anyone who is interested, I did just compete a lighting upgrade and thought I'd share the experience.
I purchased a kit from kbcarstuff.com (formerly xenondepot.com) in Canada. They initially sent me the automotive ballast with short wiring harnesses. The motorcycle-specific ballast has longer wiring cables to allow greater mounting location flexibility given the limited space on a bike. Steve at kbcarstuff acknowledged the error and quickly sent a new ballast at no charge.
The kit was supposed to be total plug-and-play with no splicing or wiring required. The review on webbikeworld for the same kit indicated as much, but while laying out the components from my kit on the living room floor, I realized another problem. I was either missing a cable between the ballast and the main power harness, or I had the wrong harness. FYI, the kit comes with NO instructions or parts list, but since every connector is unique, any reasonably intelligent person should be able to figure it out. But, I was at an impasse, so I sent Steve, who was so helpful before, an email at Kbcarstuff.com
For whatever reason, Steve never responded to my requests. I'm not afraid of wiring and splicing, so I figured it was time to just dive in and make things work.
I needed to build an extension cable to connect the ballast (mounted in the unused airbox on my TBS) in the rear of the bike to the a connector on the main wiring harness near the headlamp. Fortunately, I still had the original automotive ballast from which I robbed a connector. Then I purchased a 9004 headlight connector at Autozone for the other end of my extension cable (note: 9004 has identical dimensions to a 9005 connector, the difference being a single vs dual polarity keyway). Snip, strip, tin, grease, crimp, wrap, and voila - a new cable with professional looking (and weatherproof) automotive connectors.
I'd have had to do no other splicing except that the main wiring harness was about four feet longer than I needed. I really wanted a clean install and didn't want to stow several feet of unneeded wiring, so I resected and spliced a four foot segment from the main wiring harness. I used the left over wire in the extension cable above.
Another obstacle was that the bulb assembly had a slightly thicker seat ring than the original H4 bulb. This caused an interference with the wire latch mechanism that required that I file down a section on the seat and CAREFULLY bend the catch tab on the reflector assembly, since it seemed like the metal wouldn't tolerate much manipulation before fatiguing. Problem solved.
Other than all that, everything plugged together just fine. The fuse holder and relay, and battery connections were the last to hook up. I turned the key and it lit right up the first time. Whew! After four hours sitting on my rear end in the sun I had little patience to begin trouble shooting.
The H4 bi-xenon bulb assembly has a reflector that is actuated by a solenoid to change the illumination geometry in order to retain the high-beam function (that's a mouthful). With the engine off, you can hear the solenoid instantly switch to high-beam with either the dedicated switch or the flash-to-pass button.
My impressions:
The low-beam is now simply amazing. There is easily 2-3 times more light cast upon the ground. What is remarkable is that the beam pattern is virtually identical to the original headlamp. There is very little scatter, and the beam cutoff is just as sharp so as to not blind oncoming drivers.
FYI, I didn't realize there was a little 5W auxiliary lamp in the headlight that had long ago burned out (I'm 3rd owner). I guess the purpose it to allow you to still meet legal requirements for a headlight if you are caught out when the main bulb expires. When properly working it casts a little bit of light up close onto the road. This lower color temperature is a distinct difference to the 4300K xenon lamp now installed.
The hi-beam is less impressive. The beam patter changes only slightly, with a bit more light shining only marginally higher. I'd say I prefer my old high-beam to the new high.
All in all, though, I'd do it all over again. Because the low beam is such a vast improvement, and since I use it perhaps 98% of the time, I am willing to accept the lackluster high beam function.
They've come a long way with the xenon technology to be able to offer a hi/low beam in one bulb as a retrofit option and still retain an almost identical beam pattern. I may try another bulb design at some point to see if it affords me a slightly better high-beam function, but I'm not too worried about it now. I'm sure things will only improve as time goes on.
I've heard folks who are totally opposed to retrofits because the OEM reflector was never designed for an arc lamp, etc, etc. These people also appear to have a sales agenda for their own incandescant products. There may be a lot of truth to this, but at least in my case, it worked quite well.
Let me know if anyone has any questions - in particular if there are any TB/TBS owners considering a project like this, I'd be glad to share some installation tips and suggestions. Space is tight, so pre-planning is essential.
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Linear Mode
