LED Headlight Install - 5th Gen

I got the out of stock email on 12/24 after ordering them 12/22. They said 5-6 business days to ship but I eventually received them on 12/30 so it wasn't much of a wait. I also asked for and got a refund of $15 since I paid $95 and they were down to $79.95 a day or two before I received the shipment.

So the inventory issue may have been real and you could have had them for $75, can't hurt to ask again. They seem like pretty stand up sellers.

But I don't get the current $179 price.

 

Here's a photo I found where someone wanted to upgrade their lights by installing a H4 into a H7 hole. The H7 is quite a different beast. It's also single- beam, while H4 is Hi/Lo beam.

 

I just emailed vendor again and told them to ship at the original price ($79.95 not $74.95) or I would file complaints with eBay and PayPal, we shall see.

 

Thanks for that Zoom-Zoom but there's absolutely nothing almighty about me my friend. :redface:
I'm just an ordinary average working class goob with a goofy looking bike.

I repair heavy equipment for a living and after years of tech school training and decades of heavy equipment repair you can't help but know your way around machinery. I just pass along info that someone else taught to me.

I ordered a set of the H4 LED's from the same seller late last Saturday night gentlemen. Got the same out of stock Email from them yesterday.

They stated that there was an error in their inventory system,that they were very embarrassed about it,and that they were working to make this right for me.
I have to say that they seemed genuinely apologetic about it,they even offered me a small store credit to use toward my next purchase from them.

They also stated in the Email that they raised their price on the H4 LED light kit so as not to inconvenience anyone else. Sounds like that price raise might just be a temporary thing until they can correct their inventory issue. We'll see.

Replied that I was a patient man and in no hurry for the lights,just ship them out to me next week when they get them back in stock.

 

I emailed them back and asked if they were going to "honor" my order since they have the money. If not, and they want more, then eBay & PayPal will hear about it!

 

So FYI. I did send the eBay seller a question as to the substantial increase in the price of their H4 LED kit that I linked to in my original post. This was the reply that I received about 10 minutes ago from the seller.

Dear dentiquepdr,


Dear dentiquepdr,


Thanks for your contacting.
We are afraid that there is a little misunderstanding.
Actually this item is just out of stock and we raise the price to keep this link.
We will restock this item in about 4-5 days and once we restock it we will change the price back so it causes such inconvenience.


Your understanding will be appreciated.
Yours sincerely,


- wfyb

I'm willing to give the seller the benefit of the doubt. Hopefully his supply issue is resolved as he mentions and that the price will return to its previous level. Cross your fingers.

 

I have had some bad experiences on eBay before and I was not so trusting, however, to their benefit they will honor the sale and will ship shortly. Their idea of raising the price so high people would order was not the brightest idea, pardon the pun, it's early.

 

After all the emails, yada, yada, yada, the lights showed up this morning!

 

Did ya wind up having to pay the $79.95 price or the BIG price?

 

Yes, they processed the order normally! I told them next time put "Temporarily Out of Stock", that the increased price went over like a lead balloon.

 

I started a thread about the 6th gen LED Lights and the H4/H7 reflectors, I thought I would just upgrade the bulbs, then I added relays and a new harness, added switch to run H4 High beam too.

Well I must have made a slight miscalculation, because today, after a couple of days riding, the battery ran down! First inkling was it started to run rough. I kept the revs up and pulled into a town call Orinda, CA, where I stop for coffee at Peet's. Parked, let it cool down. Because it was running rough, I checked the mufflers and it had been running real rich, they looked like a chimney. When I tried to start it, nada. Pulled the battery and walked a couple of blocks to a Shell station and had them charge it. When back to pick it up and the mechanic handed it to me and stuck out his hand and said Happy New Year - no charge for the charge!

Tomorrow I will put the LED's in, drop from 160 watts (plus relays), to 50 watts. Everything should be fine after that.

 

I can honestly say that I was very impressed with the apparent lack of current draw on the LED's. The little PC fans can't draw much power either being as they are so small. There was a sticker on one of the fans but I can't for the life of me remember what the current draw was. My wife's bike has a PC fan on top of the R/R and I know it is rated at 7 mA and it is nearly twice the size, so between the two the draw from the lights must be minimal. I think the LED's are rated at 2.7 amps total draw for the kit. Both bulbs when on high beams are rated at 25W each so 50W total/12v equals a little more than 4 amps but I don't think they draw that much current.

 

I received an email last night from a fellow VFR owner last night mentioning that he had installed the same LED kit on his 4th gen. His general impression of the kit thus far was very positive. He mentioned that there is a definite increase in the overall amount and brightness of light thrown by his headlight and that they do not appear to be too offensive to oncoming traffic. The owner of the bike lives in Southern California so he has a lot more time to ride with the new headlights given that he does not have to contend with winter conditions.

I had had posted the install thread here and on VFRD and the message was from another VFRD member. Since it was a private message instead of post on the site, I have asked his permission to post up his findings. Once I have received his permission, I will post up what he said in his message. Does sound as though he quite happy with the results.

Thought I would share that we have at least one other install with positive results.

 

I'll be wrapping up my install this morning. First thing I have to say is these things are bright!

No unfixable issues came up. The threads between the bulb/fan were stripped/almost non-existent on one, just a bad casting. I gorilla glued them to keep the fan from working itself off.

I did trim the center of the rubber boot instead of fighting it.



Last problem I found when I test fired them up on the bike:



The mounting ring is held to the bulb by two small screws. One of the bulbs had been mounted 180 degrees off, so I had one bulb shining up and one down with the low beams. See pic, the large mounting tab is facing up but the bulbs have two different sides showing. I figured I'd unscrew the ring and just turn the bulb 180..no, the mounting holes are offset from center. I ended up drilling a couple of new mounting holes. Not a big deal but you get the quality you pay for I guess.

I hope to take it out at the end of the day and see how it does on the road.

 

Hmmm, thanks vfrcapn, guess it never hurts to check that kind of thing. I noticed a screw holding the fan to the base plate of one bulb was loose and I removed it and applied a drop of crazy glue to the threads and reinstalled it. Never checked to see if the bulbs were oriented the same, but since the same diode lights up on both bulbs I guess they were fine. Would be a good thing to check though as if they were both mounted incorrectly then the wrong LED might light up producing an incorrect beam pattern. I believe that the diode furthest away from the bulb base (where the fan is attached) that is the low beam diode and when installed in the headlight that diode should be facing UP.

i look forward to hearing your opinion Cap'n after taking the bike out for a ride.

 

American 7260 series was the largest crawler crane I ever worked on Zoom-Zoom. 100 ton capacity.





Grove TM 1500 was the largest mobile hydraulic crane I ever worked on. 150 ton capacity.

Grove cranes were absolutely beautiful pieces of equipment,the Cadillac of cranes if you will. Very well designed and relatively easy to work on. Kinda miss working on these bad boys. :sentimental:

 

Very Cool Stosh. Thanks for sharing. Working on that kind of machinery sure would be neat. I think my son would crazy with delight if he got to see one of those things up close and even more so if he got to be in the drivers seat while one was working. You know kids and heavy equipment. LOL

 

For all those interested, apparently the ebay seller who had increased his prices substantially, they are back down to $79.95. Apparently he has solved the inventory issue for the moment.

 

Got my H4 LEDs installed in my lower reflectors on my 6th generation, going out when it gets dark to see how the high beam performs. No problem with install.