M
musicman
Guest
So when I bought my 550 it had a Vetter WJ5 on it, saddle bags, rack, and a broken trunk. I removed all that because I thought it all looked odd, and made the bike more "cafe" looking. But after constant prodding by my dad, I put the Vetter fairing back on, I'd never ridden a bike with one and he said I'd love it. I had doubts, I've ridden his '84 Wing plenty and can't stand that thing. Anywho, I put it on, and sure enough, I really enjoy the ride with it, really relaxing to commute to work and back with. So I've been in the process of de-cafe'ing my bike, with thoughts of a frame-up resto this winter with all new paint and powder, gaskets, engine freshen up, etc.
Anywho, one ride to work told me that the sealed beam candle in the fairing straight up sucks. I've been spoiled with my HID headlight, so I thought "hey, why don't I just put the H4 housing and HID headlight in the fairing". I'm 3 days into this and straight irritated now. First, the flange around the housing is thinner than a sealed beam, and when you tighten the ring down the housing is still loose. Still haven't come up with a rock-solid idea to fix that. Then I had this "ingenious" idea to wire the light, I cut the yellow and black wire in the housing (low and ground), ran them to the ballast, and connected the ballast output wires to the yellow and black that I assumed went to the headlight. The yellow did! Finish it all up, no light, ballast got hot and died. After some prodding and reading I found that an HID headlight has to have an isolated circuit to the lamp, so the ground I spliced the outlet into didn't let any lights work, and somehow killed the ballast. Anyway, lucky me I have a few more of these things, I bought another 55w hi/lo kit for my Corolla I never installed. So I run a ground wire from the ballast to the lamp, and still try to use the factory yellow wire, and a known good ballast I should say. STILL NOTHING! So I figure it's the 33 year old wire I'm trying to use, replace all the wires going to the headlight with fresh, eliminating a connector in the process too, now it flicks on and shuts off. REALLY frustrated now. Unplug the 2 wires going into the ballast and check voltage, go figure, about 10.5 volts. I unplug the pigtail going from the bike's stock bucket to the fairing and check voltage (none of this the bike is running) at the end of the pigtail, 11.75 volts. Better, still not great, battery is roughly 12.5 at the posts. But that should be enough, and would be more with the bike running. So my only thought is that I need to build a new harness for the fairing, as well as make a new pigtail.
But in all the stupid mess, I'm having another problem I cannot figure out, it has to be a short somewhere. I got the HID kit to stay on for about 30 seconds, when it's running (headlight switch on low beam), the high beam indicator is lit up, and REALLY bright, any thoughts on that? As soon as the ballast shuts off the high beam indicator turns off.
I'm going to completely re-do the wiring for this thing, ordering a new fairing plug and terminals after I finish typing this, and lots of wire. But the issue above has me scratching my head a tad. If I didn't enjoy riding with the Vetter fairing so much I'd scrap it and toss a plexi fairing on the bike and call it good. If I can get this all to work, this winter the fairing will get restored too with a new windshield and trim, paint and decals.
Anywho, one ride to work told me that the sealed beam candle in the fairing straight up sucks. I've been spoiled with my HID headlight, so I thought "hey, why don't I just put the H4 housing and HID headlight in the fairing". I'm 3 days into this and straight irritated now. First, the flange around the housing is thinner than a sealed beam, and when you tighten the ring down the housing is still loose. Still haven't come up with a rock-solid idea to fix that. Then I had this "ingenious" idea to wire the light, I cut the yellow and black wire in the housing (low and ground), ran them to the ballast, and connected the ballast output wires to the yellow and black that I assumed went to the headlight. The yellow did! Finish it all up, no light, ballast got hot and died. After some prodding and reading I found that an HID headlight has to have an isolated circuit to the lamp, so the ground I spliced the outlet into didn't let any lights work, and somehow killed the ballast. Anyway, lucky me I have a few more of these things, I bought another 55w hi/lo kit for my Corolla I never installed. So I run a ground wire from the ballast to the lamp, and still try to use the factory yellow wire, and a known good ballast I should say. STILL NOTHING! So I figure it's the 33 year old wire I'm trying to use, replace all the wires going to the headlight with fresh, eliminating a connector in the process too, now it flicks on and shuts off. REALLY frustrated now. Unplug the 2 wires going into the ballast and check voltage, go figure, about 10.5 volts. I unplug the pigtail going from the bike's stock bucket to the fairing and check voltage (none of this the bike is running) at the end of the pigtail, 11.75 volts. Better, still not great, battery is roughly 12.5 at the posts. But that should be enough, and would be more with the bike running. So my only thought is that I need to build a new harness for the fairing, as well as make a new pigtail.
But in all the stupid mess, I'm having another problem I cannot figure out, it has to be a short somewhere. I got the HID kit to stay on for about 30 seconds, when it's running (headlight switch on low beam), the high beam indicator is lit up, and REALLY bright, any thoughts on that? As soon as the ballast shuts off the high beam indicator turns off.
I'm going to completely re-do the wiring for this thing, ordering a new fairing plug and terminals after I finish typing this, and lots of wire. But the issue above has me scratching my head a tad. If I didn't enjoy riding with the Vetter fairing so much I'd scrap it and toss a plexi fairing on the bike and call it good. If I can get this all to work, this winter the fairing will get restored too with a new windshield and trim, paint and decals.
