The first one was the failure of the headlight bulb. I thought it was a bit dim pulling out of my car park at work and pulling up behind a white van in traffic revealed the cause. Fortunately, the high beam was not set too high (possible as the supension is set towards "hard") and I could get away with riding on high.
Replacing the bulb was pretty straigtforward, TX20 for the small screws, large cross head for the bracket screws. I was foxed for a second by the fact that there are no locating lugs on the headlamp shell then I remembered that the H7 is low beam only so is not directional in any way. The only slight issue was the rubber "gasket" that fits on the back of the centre panel which kept slipping down while trying to refit the panel.
Halfords sell about a million different types of headlamp bulb offering a selection of increased light output for your 55W. I recal some objective test we carried out at the AA years ago on "clever" headlight bulbs which objectively concluded that it was all bollocks - apart from the bigger profit, the only real difference was a perception of brighter light.I believe that subsequent research (by proper professionals !) has concluded that there is some benefit - but I took the old fashioned approach and fitted a 80W bulb (rather than the 100w jobs of yore). I will of course only be using the GP800 off road in future :-)
I'll keep an eye on the plastic cover for signs of melting but I suspect that
- It's unlikely to be a problem in these temperatures (2 degrees this morning)
- There's a fair distance between the bulb and the plastic cover.
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