While riding the other night (see below) I noticed that I had a dead bulb in my speedometer. Of course it would have to be the one in the left-hand sector of the speedo that covers the 0-100km/h section so I couldn’t really afford to ignore it even though it was tempting to do so.
But you know how it is. Once you notice something is wrong it nags at you until you fix it and this was a perfect illustration. In consultation with the guys on a couple of the VFR forums that I inhabit I found that you COULD get to the back of the instrument panel by simply removing the mirrors, the screen and the false panel at the base of the screen. Cool. But, having done that I found that this still did not give me access to the one bulb holder that I needed to have access to, the one holding the dead bulb.
So it was on to stripping off the fairing sides and gently moving aside the top fairing so that I could have access. I’ve done the fairing lowers lots of times as you need to do this to do an oil change, but I’d never done the top one. Surprisingly, it was fairly easy and gave me the access I needed.
Now, in preparation for the job, I had gone to my local Honda dealer yesterday and found out the part number and price. $4.69 for one tiny peanut bulb. So, I thought I’d be clever and check elsewhere as I was sure it would be a standard bulb. As it turns out, it was a standard bulb, but not a standard wattage (1.7w). And, added to which fact, the Honda dealer informs me this morning after I had disasembled that they didn’t have the bulb in stock and, if I wanted to order one, I’d have to come into town and pay for it before the order could be completed.
This was starting to get annoying. So, armed with the bulb and heaps of confidence, I did a quick trip south to my tame mechanic’s shop and bought a 2w globe for the grand price of $2.00. Back home and fit and Robert’s your father’s brother. I also noted that the bulbs themselves seemed quite dusty even though they plug into the back of the panel with a dust seal so I took out each bulb (there are 12 of them altogther) and gave them a thorough clean before I put everything back together.
So, all is well in Honda-land again, but it raises the issue of just how much disassembly and assembly I had to do to accomplish the ridiculously simple task of replacing one bulb. I know that this is the penalty that you pay for a faired bike, but I do think that Mr Honda could have thought it out a little better.
As a by-product of ths process, I was advised by some forum members to replace all of the bulbs while the panel was disassembled and to replace with LED bulbs instead as they give a clearer light, but none of the “Rice Boy” outlets around town could help me with that either. The US-based company superbrightleds.com seem to be the answer, but, with a base shipping rate of $US25 for the smallest parcel, I don’t think I’ll be going down that route any time soon.