Triumphrat

biketraveller · 07-07-2009, 03:58 PM

Here in Switzerland people drive on the right side of the road. So the asymmetric low beam illumination on my Tiger 1050 is higher on the right side of the road.
This summer I am heading for England where people drive on the correct side of the road (which, arguably, is the left side

), so the asymmetric illumination has to be reversed.

Changing the low beam on my old girlie over to LH-traffic was never a problem - either tape over the asymmetric bit on the headlamp glass or affix one of these modern "beam converters" over it.
With the headlight of the 1050 this does not appear to be entirely straightforward anymore.

Has anyone solved this problem before, preferably using equipment available in Continental Europe?

PeteH · 07-07-2009, 07:59 PM

Unless your riding at night I would`nt bother, as the 1050`s lamp is soooo poor no one will notice, come to that no will notice even if its dark

biketraveller · 07-18-2009, 06:29 PM

Must I assume that all those 1050 owners from e. g. the UK follow PeteH's advice given above and ride on the continent without giving a toss about the headlight blinding oncoming traffic?

Come on, folks, someone must have had some thoughts about this problem. Any suggestions short of ordering a LH traffic headlight will be very much appreciated.

RedBird · 07-18-2009, 11:15 PM

On this side of the pond, one can adjust the dipped beam any and every way AND get NO complaints from other drivers. As said, it is so poor the only problem one might face (other than having a wreck caused by not being able to see) is the possibility of getting a ticket from the authorities for having improper (too weak) lighting.

ChazzyB · 07-19-2009, 05:01 AM

The same problem exists on modern cars with plain plastic light covers - where do you fit beam converters or mask the dip pattern?

My car's got HIDs and a setting in the compter to swap the beam pattern.

I think I'd park the bike up facing a wall 4-5 meters away, with the lights on, and play around with a peice of card to find where to mask the low beam. What do you mask with though? I'm a bit wary of insulating tape on plastic, as I masked the top strip of my helmet visor against low sun and when I peeled it off again, the glue's left a permanent mark where it was.

biketraveller · 10-25-2009, 08:06 AM

First of all, thanks to everyone who tried to help with solving this problem.
I have applied some Swiss engineering to the problem and disassembled an entire Tiger 1050 lamp housing.

Warning: Do not do this to yours unless you have a spare unit. The housing is a sealed assembly. Opening it up will render it unusable.

The following images show the H7 unit removed from the housing and the metal shield plate with its two mounting positions for RH and LH traffic. As the plate is bolted to the housing and the housing is a sealed unit, it is next to impossible to switch the beam.

Hopefully this will clarify the matter for anyone else wanting to temporarily bike "on the other side". If you live in the US, Canada or Taiwan you are not affected by this problem - due to different legislation the beam is perfectly symmetrical in these countries.