Headlights are incredibly dim even after replacing bulbs.

So, on my 5th gen, my headlights barely work. They're really not that cloudy, and at first I replaced the bulbs with regular halogen bulbs, which did basically nothing, and then later with H4 LED bulbs, which give me some light, but not enough to see the road in front of me worth of shit. I suspect that the reflector is bad or something. It doesn't look like a normal headlight reflector (shiny metal), it looks almost matte black. I don't even know if it has a reflector, god knows if and what the previous owners did to this bike. I cannot for the life of me find a new headlight unit (I'd like to just get a new unit, the retaining clips are messed up too and I want to just start with a fresh unit). Any tips on how to get brighter headlights? Is there a way to find a new reflector and put it in?

 

You would have to separate the lens from the back part of the light. You tube videos out there on that. Involves an oven. You could then paint the reflector part with a chrome paint that would be alot better than black. The reflective coating may have flaked off the reflector sounds like. I can't imagine someone painting it black, then again some body may have thought it looks cool and mean with a black headlight.

 

Thanks for the info.

FA247F39-701B-491E-B4BD-09347509FF88 by connah250r posted Sep 16, 2022 at 7:02 PM

Here's a picture if you need it.
I'll look into chrome painting it.

 

If you decide to repaint the reflector make sure you choose suitable high temperature heat resistant paint - the light housing and reflector have to withstand a lot of heat - so typical spray silver paint won't last long.

As for choosing bulbs for more light this link may give you some thoughts on the pros and cons of moving to an LED equivalent bulb - always assuming you have confirmed there is room within the housing to accommodate the bulb and any heat dissapation gubbins.

https://blog.betterautomotivelighting.com/how-hot-do-led-headlight-bulbs-get

 

May want to see if this guy will ship you one if he still has it.

https://orangecounty.craigslist.org/mpd/d/atwood-parted-out-honda-vfr800/7537372419.html

 

Or source one from fleaBay in Europe ( but not UK or Ireland as we drive on the other side )

 

Hit him up on eBay, says he does not have the headlight. Was worth a try


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

I will keep my eyes peeled for another opportunity.

 

another update for those in the future:
while i was replacing my fairings I pulled out the headlight unit and, lo and behold, the previous owner had for sure been poking around inside, judging by the fact that the headlight unit was being held together with… bolts. I didn’t even need an oven to split it apart, whoever did this was on some real MacGyver stuff. Now, why the headlight was blacked out, I’ll never know. Anyways, I spray painted the reflectors with some metallic spray paint I had in the garage. It’s not as shiny as the real chrome plating, but I think it’s brighter. I haven’t actually had a chance to ride at night, so I can’t tell, but judging by my lights-off testing in my garage, it’s brighter. While I was painting, I noticed that it would seem like the previous jackass owner had ALSO painted over the reflector, but with black. Again, why the hell anyone would want to do this, I’ll never know. Ideally, I would have put some paint stripper and gotten the chrome back, but this all happened when everything here in Dallas froze over, so there was no way for me to get some paint thinner, and I needed to finish this job quick because my mom was whining about her car being in the driveway. Anyways, I fabricated a piece of pipe to work as a clip to hold the headlights in place, everything’s all adjusted, and hopefully it’ll work better. Someone makes a special chrome spray paint thats meant to repaint headlight reflectors, but its like $40 a can or something. Anyways yeah, if you ever buy a VFR with blacked out headlights, try some paint thinner first. Maybe.