650r Headlight Bulb Options????

[BRAYTON]

I Recently Bought An 03 650r And I Was Wondering If There Are Alternate Front Bulb Options For A Brighter Light. I Know Baja Designs Makes Lights For It But I Am Looking For A Cheap Easy Replacment. I Was Hoping Someone Could Help Me With An Alternate And Cheaper Idea. Any Suggestions Would Be Appreciated.

[Moredesert]

Your problem is the plastic lens. You can't put a brighter bulb in it with out melting the plastic. You might as well tape a flash light to your front fender if you don't have the money to up grade.

The best replacement is the Baja Designs OEM glass lens with a 55w bulb. Even a 35 watt with the glass lens works 100% better than the stock 35 watt you have now.

As time goes on you might want to rewind your stator yourself for about $20 and you can up grade to a 85 watt with the glass lens and you'll be set.

[bikemadtim]

I have a 40/45w bulb in mine but over here in the UK we get a glass lens as standard for some reason. It makes a big difference with the brighter bulb.

Car drivers can see you coming before they pull out in front of you now ?

[Mikie1]

You basically don't have many options with the stock plastic lens headlight. I read a post somewhere where someone used a 55-watt bulb with some success in the stock light, but the stator won't really keep up with that bulb, especially at idle. Others have said the plastic lens can't handle the heat of the 55-watt bulb, let alone anything like 80 or 100 watts.

If you're on a tight budget, and don't mind spending a few hours doing it, the stator rewind is pretty easy, then you can run the Baja Designs glass lens kit with a 100-watt bulb. You'll spend at least a couple hours actually winding the wire, and a couple more doing the soldering, removal and reinstallation of the stator & cover, plus (if you're like most of us who undertake this...), a few hours reading & studying how to do it.

I did it more because I enjoyed the challenge and satisfaction of doing it myself. If these aren't motivating factors for you, save up a few clams and send it off to Baja Designs to get it done. It'll be done right, the first time, and you get fantastic support from them. Way worth it if you value your time at all. Just my $.02

[Husky_Forever]

Do the BD rewind on your stator, get a glass lens and you can run the HID light. One of the guys here just did that, built his own HID out of mail order parts and used a BD headlight assembly for the base. Works great!

[Troy_Bell]

Yes, I agree. Get it rewound. The difference is stunning. Your light will shine like it should have from the factory (IMO). You will need to use a Dremel tool to grind down a couple of internal ribs in your stator cover, but it is no big deal. Baja Designs will send the diagram and instructions back to you with your rewound stator.

[Winkel]

I have rewound my stator. What is the Baja Designs headlight base you speak of. Is it just the light?

Winkel

[qadsan]

You can significantly improve the lighting by purchasing the Honda glass lens from your Honda dealer (Honda PN# 33123-MK2-671) for as little as $22 depending on the discount your dealer gives you. This glass lens simply replaces your stock plastic light assembly and it accepts a H3 bulb. The connectors from the stock plastic headlight assembly are different, so you'll need to buy some new connectors to mate with the H3 bulb, but you can get these at Walmart, Autozone, etc. The only thing left to do is to buy a $5 H3 bulb at your favorite auto parts store or even at Walmart. The rubber boot on the back of your stock plastic lens will fit over the new glass lens with some coaxing, but it's a tighter fit. The stock stator will work fairly well with this setup and you'll be much happier with the improved lighting. At idle, the light will be a bit dim, but once you crack the throttle, the light will get to full brightness very soon. If you want full brightness at idle, then you'll either need to rewind your stator for more power or send it out to have it rewound or buy a higher output stator. Rewinding the stator is pretty easy to do if you like projects, have the time and are inclined to do so. Here's a link to more info in rewinding the stator if this interests you. http://www.xr650r.us/stator Ricky Stator sells a complete bolt in high output stator for $150 at the following link http://www.rickystator.com/pages/XR650stator.html

[HairyScary]

I Recently Bought An 03 650r And I Was Wondering If There Are Alternate Front Bulb Options For A Brighter Light. I Know Baja Designs Makes Lights For It But I Am Looking For A Cheap Easy Replacment. I Was Hoping Someone Could Help Me With An Alternate And Cheaper Idea. Any Suggestions Would Be Appreciated.

A friend of mine has a bad habit of riding too close, which doesn't work

well with the glass lens, as you can imagine. (Score 1 for the XR650, zero

for the XR400 and the glass lens...)

So, I came up with a fairly easy way to fit an H3 55W halogen bulb into the

stock plastic lens that comes with the non-halogen 35W bulb. I say fairly

easy, since it doesn't require any additional parts other than the bulb

itself. The 55W should not melt or discolour the plastic lens, as I've

seen some low budget car driving lights that come with H3 55W in a plastic

lens. If you really care about lighting, you would run the Honda glass lens

or replace the whole headlight assembly (and optionally rewind the stator),

but for some people who like riding real close to others, the plastic lens

might be preferred.

NOTE: Do not touch Halogen bulb glass with your bare hands - contaminants

will react with the glass at high heat and bulb life will be shortened.

If you do accidentally touch it, clean the glass with alcohol.

1) Order a H3 55W bulb. The Honda bulb (p/n 34908-SA0-811) is made by

Stanley and comes with a european sized male bullet connector versus the

spade connector found on most automotive H3. It also lends itself to the

slight modification (see #8 below) quite well, and has nice thick insulation.

But buying the bulb from somewhere other than Honda might save you some $.

2) Remove headlight straps, and unplug headlight from bike.

3) Remove rubber socket boot, socket and then bulb from headlight.

4) If the black outer sleeve has been heat-bonded to the socket wires, then

carefully cut it free of the wires, preserving as much of the length of the

black sleeve as possible, and not damaging the wire insulation inside.

5) Push the bakelite disk down on one side into the socket spring so that

it can pop out of the socket when you release it.

6) Cut the wire (typically blue) just below the bakelite disk and feed the

wire out of the rubber boot. Set the wire and disk aside - you won't need

these unless you want to convert back to 35W (not likely).

7) Ensure the ground wire (usually green) is fed through the hole or

feedthrough in the boot that is closest to the front of the bike. It is

usually fed through the rearward one. (Leaving the rearward one for the

bulb wire gives it slightly more room to curve around.)

8) You need to slightly modify the H3 bulb so that the wire comes straight

out the bottom of the bulb and not out at 90 degrees to the bottom. On the

Honda bulb, this is easily done by snipping one tiny web of metal near the

strain relief. You can then bend the part of the strain relief that is

crimped around the wires up 90 degrees.

8) Stretch the factory socket spring by about 1/2" (13mm) while trying to

keep the end coils intact and square with each other.

9) With the bulb wire coming out the bottom of the bulb, you should be able

to fit the spring over the bulb wire and over the rectangular metal part of

the bottom of the bulb.

10) Fit the metal hat shaped remaining part of the socket over the bulb

wire and over the spring.

11) Feed the bulb wire through the rearward hole in the socket boot.

12) Place the bulb in the headlight, with the round notch in the bulb ring

facing up. You will note that the H3 ring is slightly smaller than the

original bulb ring, and it might not want to sit flat and centred on its

own. Fortunately, the fit of the spring around the rear of the bulb is

very snug and the spring in the metal socket hat will keep the bulb

centred once the hat is locked into the headlight. Since there is nothing

to index the bulb and keep the round notch at the top (i.e. bulb filament

flat with the ground) you may have to take a few tries to get the metal

socket hat in and have the bulb stay in the desired rotational position,

but at least you can look through the lens from the front to see where it

is at.

13) Feed the remainder of the black protective sleeve back over the

two headlight wires.

14) Plug in the headlight wires to the bike and reinstall the headlight.

Lighting won't be as good as with the glass lens, especially if your

plastic is all scratched and hazy. Might be worth a bit of polishing if it

is that bad...

~

[HooliKen]

As with a motor so goes the optics.....there is no replacement for clarity. Unless you race.........or follow your buddies way to close..........get a quality glass lense and watch the night come to life...as it were!!

[frankstr]

I robbed the headlite from my XR600R for the BRP..........

It's about as brite as the 35 W was at idle, But off idle the 55 W shine's much briter, Plus I believe the glass len's make's a diff........

Now I need to make some protection for the lite.........

[zerofear66]

You can significantly improve the lighting by purchasing the Honda glass lens from your Honda dealer (Honda PN# 33123-MK2-671) for as little as $22 depending on the discount your dealer gives you. This glass lens simply replaces your stock plastic light assembly and it accepts a H3 bulb. The connectors from the stock plastic headlight assembly are different, so you'll need to buy some new connectors to mate with the H3 bulb, but you can get these at Walmart, Autozone, etc. The only thing left to do is to buy a $5 H3 bulb at your favorite auto parts store or even at Walmart. The rubber boot on the back of your stock plastic lens will fit over the new glass lens with some coaxing, but it's a tighter fit. The stock stator will work fairly well with this setup and you'll be much happier with the improved lighting. At idle, the light will be a bit dim, but once you crack the throttle, the light will get to full brightness very soon. If you want full brightness at idle, then you'll either need to rewind your stator for more power or send it out to have it rewound or buy a higher output stator. Rewinding the stator is pretty easy to do if you like projects, have the time and are inclined to do so. Here's a link to more info in rewinding the stator if this interests you. http://www.xr650r.us/stator Ricky Stator sells a complete bolt in high output stator for $150 at the following link http://www.rickystator.com/pages/XR650stator.html

Great post!!...You answered all my questions BEFORE I asked them....God love the search feature!

[hockeyrick]

Old post but........I have an 03 R with a BD front headlight with a cyclops in it. 

Question-will the complete Cyclops(rectangle housing and all) fit in another housing that anyone knows of?