Lights - Replacing clocks bulb

[josh]

Hey guys....just bought myself a '99 600, and very happy indeed with her. Tiny prob tho...the bulb for the tach and speedo is gone, now I dont really need to know exactly haw fast i'm going in the dark, but mr plod may disagree!!
Can anyone let me know, do I have to take the whole fairing off to get to it, I tried the flysreen and retaining allan bolts but it seemed reticent. Basically I didn't want to force it, but also thought a fairing removal was a bit overkill for such a small job!....any advice greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
Josh

[teejayexc]

You need to take the screen off and the rubber wellnuts that the screen screws in to, then undo the two, (I think), screws each side that hold the inner section (the bit between your clocks and the fairing). You can just about access the bulb holders then, it's fiddly but possible.

Otherwise leave it till you're taking the fairing off for another reason?

[amorti]

On the later 600 (OP's is a 99 so this applies) it's even more of a PITA. Remove screen (6 screws). Remove rubber wellnuts (6) which may well be beyond re-use. Remove fairing inner (further 4 screws). Remove main fairing (further 6 screws and the indicators).

Finally get to those bulbs.

Then have fun putting it back together.

Really, it's a big hassle and IMHO a very poor piece of design.

[shorty]

Just replaced my bulbs too.

I took the fairing off completely to get at the bulbs (if i can do it anyone can).You're gonna need 3 bulbs if you got no lights at all, 2 for the speedo/milage side and 1 for the rev counter side.

The bulbs i took out were 1.7W which i found difficult to source easily, so ended up with 3W bulbs from halfords which work well and stuck a brighter headlight bulb in too while i'd got it in bits, didnt want to dismantle it again !

When i put the fairing back on i replaced all the expanding rubbers and it's seemed to have cured most of the infamous 4k rev vibration, which was a bonus.

[amorti]

This is a picture of my dad's Fireblade, and the reason why you're going to take that whole assembly apart, and put it back together with the right parts in. See what's happened between the 8 and 9rpm marks? That's what happens when you use a bulb that's easy to find rather than the right bulb. Go to your local main dealer, Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha, probably Suzuki too, it doesn't matter. But do get the right parts.

[m40man]

I confess I've used 3w ones in one of my D6's before. Didn't do any harm to the clock face. I wonder if on that Fireblade the bulb was actually touching the face, hence the damage?

[amorti]

I had the same on a CB-1 many moons ago, though it didn't melt it, just bleach the black paint out. Maybe hondas are worse for it? I don't know, but I'm not about to take the chance given that 1.7w bulbs, while a little trickier to find, are most certainly still freely available if you know where to look.

[eliminator]

Probably find the speedo face is 0.005 thinner than the previous years model to make the bike lighter.................... and faster.

[amorti]

Well it worked, I have a 96-97 model blade, my dad has a 98-99 model blade, and his is certainly faster.

Might be the fact my one's carbs are full of shite though (to be sorted tomorrow)

[CD]

LED bulbs dont get hot so wont melt the clock face and should last longer than filament bulbs.

[bear]

CD, where can you get those?

[CD]

Sorry, I cant reccommend anyone but did a google for "LED bulbs" and one or two suppliers came up. You might have to send them a sample bulb to get the right one.

[lds1973]

Once you have your screen and inner black cowling off, you can just pull the bulbs out, there are 3 of them help in by rubber and have the blue and black wires going to them. Just pull them out. You can get 2.1W bulbs which are only slightly brighter than the 1.7W so they wont damage the clocks.