Hiya, Greetings from Ottawa, Canada and nice job on the cleanup. My Bandit is a first gen with the older style headlight, but I learned a lot from your video. Thanks and please keep them coming - us small-channel colonials gotta stick together!
@JDnBeastlet - Thanks again for the kind feedback. The dust problem seems to be more of an issue with the Gen 2 Bandit S but I guess it can apply to most bikes. The oven trick would have made it easier to separate the headlight but got there in the end anyway. Question that the headlight will better when I ride it at night for the first time will be answered !! Cheers for watching, from Commonwealth NZ :)
I have a 2nd gen bandit that I’ve been modifying for about 10 years now. This headlight mod was one of the early upgrades I did. When I pulled the housing apart I found the projector lenses to be chipped on the edge from vibration. After some research I found that a Mazda 3 projector lense is the same diameter and morimoto, and aftermarket headlight website, sold them with the claim to be optically clear. That combined with cheap hid setups in each side gave me insanely bright headlights. To the point that my reflection off road signs blinds me.
@livewires8637 - this is fantastic information! I'll definitely look into that. Even after cleaning up the lights, they're still average at best. Thanks for watching my video 🙂
Very nicely done. Being the owner of a k3 1200s since 2020, I was looking for videos related to headlights, and this is exactly the thing I wanted to understand about headlight inner fittings. Mine are in a bit clear shape but have LED bulbs (probably cheap ones with lots of LEDs everywhere) installed by earlier owner. Since these don't even make a beam pattern, I'll be swapping them with Phillips Ultinon LEDs soon.
@MrLeo3D - thanks for the great comment 🙂 . The project has also been a learning curve for me too. What I didn't do but should have is remove the reflectors and clean them properly but reckon the tea towel did a good enough job. I'm in the process of repairing the fairing cheaply and easily so hopefully I will be able to showcase that too. The Bandit 12s really are a well liked bike. I've never heard anyone say anything bad about them. Thanks again for watching my video 😎.
Tip for next time. If you already have the headlight open, you could have removed the lenses straight away to clean them better. The dust is caused by vibrations of the lenses in the holder. You can glue the lenses with heat-resistant silicone to provide a permanent solution.
My headlights on the 87 FZR in restoring were wobbling around on the adjusters, when i pulled them apart someone had lost the anti vibration springs that sit over the adjusters, and replaced them with springs from some ballpoint pens😮💨 Luckily they were still available new from Yamaha.
@@motorcyclingkiwistyle As bikes get old and cheap they tend to attract owners who can't or won't spend any money maintaining them, doesn't help that here in NZ we tend to be fleeced on spares (and everything else😮💨). Just last week my local Suzuki dealer quoted me $750.00 for a clutch slave cylinder (same one the bandit 12 uses) $200.00 for the part, and $550.00 shipping from Japan to NZ......🤣🤣$550.00 shipping for a part that weighs 0.3 kg, I have no idea how they came up with that, but i got them to double check and they stood by that price, So I got one from Mick Hone Suzuki in Australia 180.00 NZ$ delivered to my door.
Great video, I now realise why my Bandit 1200s lights are so poor. Night riding is quite dangerous the lights are so bad... Have you any recommendations for brighter bulbs after doing cleaning the headlight unit?
