BMW R1200R R1150R/T F800 K1200R R1100R/T R1250R RnineT Message Board

Part I. The Petri dish is gone

The looks of my tach made me sick. What you see is no fog: it's permanent.

Some skilled people have managed to remove the intrument’s bezel by prying the stainless steel ring around it. I looked at the ring and decided not to try it: no way that it would remain waterproof after my surgery. So I cut the plastic open:

Cutting it open with a utility knife was relatively easy. I cut 14 mm (about ½ in) below the ring. I first traced the cut lightly and then over and over with more force until it opened up. I recommend marking a sharp notch across the cut so that you will know how to properly align the bezel afterwards.
CAUTION: there are 3 rubber fingers that hold the back plate in position. You can see the ones at 500RPM and 9500 RPM positions, and there is one at 5100 RPM. If you didn’t read this caution carefully, you will likely have cut through one or two of these rubber fingers, but that’s not a big deal. You can always epoxy them back in place.
After cleaning the inside of the bezel, I epoxied the top on. For an added measure of integrity and water-tightness, I also epoxied a band of fiberglass. Et voilà, c’est tout!


Part II. No more Twinkle-Twinkle

To finish up the job, I had some instrument bulbs to replace: two out of four were burnt up and the remaining ones looked bad. At 57,000 miles, their useful life had clearly been exceeded. The OEM replacement for those 12V 1.7W bulbs is #62142306127, but it's hard to find. A #74 bulb from a common autoparts store will do OK too. But then I wanted to try something better, and I tried these:

This is what they are:
4X White LED for speedometer and tach
Small Wedge Base LED bulb (74 type) 12V~ 2 lumen
3/16 inch wide base, 13/16 inch overall length
Flat tipped LED produces wide beam angle
Replacement for OEM 12V 1.7W 62142306127 bulbs.

1X White LED for clock
BA7s Bayonet Base bulb
12VDC BA7s Single Contact Midget Flange Base bulb with Wide Viewing Angle LED
Replacement for OEM 12V 2W 07119978279 bulb.

Here is a comparison with OEM filament bulbs:

Finally, the completed job looks like this:


If it weren't so cold and wet, I' d go for a night ride.

Very Nice! Hope those bright lights don't night-blind you! (That's probably just some trick photography )
The tach and the instrument cluster look great, and when the time comes, I'll be looking for some LED's.
Thanks for including the numbers and specs. Did you find them locally or order them?

BTW, how did your tach lens get so frosted

e' benvenutto encore'.
Glad your back!

Carlos.....Bravisimo....now that you have the lights, when are you affixing the wings for low level flight?

Man...it's almost 5 years since we met last.....that was some good riding!!!!

I like it!!!! But I went to my local Advanced Auto store and they didn't have any replacement LED lamps - at all! What store did you buy them from?

Sunbeemer, I don't know what caused that frost-looking stuff, but it is likely a result of my bike's harsh youth: it spent its first 3 years outdoors, first in Chicago, then San Diego, then Boston. However, I have read about many cases of similar complaints. Perhaps it's only a problem for those who ride in the rain or leave their bikes outside?
The 2-lumen #74-x white LEDs have about the same brightness as the OEM. I also tried the amber LEDs, which have a nice glow similar to the instrument cluster in BMW cars, but they are noticeably less bright compared to OEM. Perhaps the 74-xHP would be a better choice if you want amber.

Boxermania, it has indeed been a long time!

R4R&R, you can search for "LED 74 bulb" on eBay. However, the Ba7s for the clock is harder to find, so perhaps it's better to order the whole thing from here:
http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/ ... 2Fba7s.htm
http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/ ... tml%23wled

Arbreacames wrote:Sunbeemer, I don't know what caused that frost-looking stuff, but it is likely a result of my bike's harsh youth: it spent its first 3 years outdoors, first in Chicago, then San Diego, then Boston. However, I have read about many cases of similar complaints. Perhaps it's only a problem for those who ride in the rain or leave their bikes outside?
The 2-lumen #74-x white LEDs have about the same brightness as the OEM. I also tried the amber LEDs, which have a nice glow similar to the instrument cluster in BMW cars, but they are noticeably less bright compared to OEM. Perhaps the 74-xHP would be a better choice if you want amber.

Boxermania, it has indeed been a long time!

R4R&R, you can search for "LED 74 bulb" on eBay. However, the Ba7s for the clock is harder to find, so perhaps it's better to order the whole thing from here:
http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/ ... 2Fba7s.htm
http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/ ... tml%23wled

Nifty, thanks. The pics for yours are all white LEDs, right?

White, 9900K.

Carlos, Job really well done and 5 gold stars for your out-of-the-box thinking to cut open the tach housing. My OilHead also had a barely noticeable cloudyness to the tach glass, prolly an aging anti fog film.

My new F800-ST doesn't have replaceable instrument bulbs or fuses but the instrument face unscrews allowing whole front faceplate removal for lens cleaning. I'm planning on adding 2 + 2 Radio Shack LED's to either side of the stock tail lite bulb for 2 park lite and 2 Hi-intensity brake lite LED's for additional brightness and bulb burnout back-up.

.

Arbreacames wrote:White, 9900K.

I don't suppose, clever rascal that you appear to be, that you have a nice bright LED number for the license plate light do you ?

Airman wrote:

Arbreacames wrote:White, 9900K.

I don't suppose, clever rascal that you appear to be, that you have a nice bright LED number for the license plate light do you ?

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=15574

MattPie wrote:

Airman wrote:

Arbreacames wrote:White, 9900K.

I don't suppose, clever rascal that you appear to be, that you have a nice bright LED number for the license plate light do you ?

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=15574

Thanks Matt,

I ordered from this place, http://www.virtualvillage.com/2x-12v-xe ... 0-336.html $5.98 for 2 bulbs, no shipping.

Okay, so I replaced my instrument lights with the same LED bulbs shown in this thread and now only the clock lights up. The four LEDs behind the gauges are not working. I'm going to be taking it all back apart tomorrow to put the OEM bulbs back in, but any ideas as to why they suddenly wouldn't work?

Carlos - great job and great write-up. I do have a question. I can't see where it said what you replaced the lens with. Were you able to get the fog removed or did you buy a new lens?

Thanks

C

AFDirt, You might want to try reversing the LED's in the sockets... yeah it does make a difference (polarity-wise), it's covered in some older threads.
Aside from that, make sure the plugs are getting power (multimeter check). If all appears correct, maybe put power to the LED's to see if they work at all (may be DOA).
Good luck.
JC

stilldking wrote:AFDirt, You might want to try reversing the LED's in the sockets... yeah it does make a difference (polarity-wise), it's covered in some older threads.
Aside from that, make sure the plugs are getting power (multimeter check). If all appears correct, maybe put power to the LED's to see if they work at all (may be DOA).
Good luck.
JC

It turns out i put all four LEDs in backwards..what are the odds?

50/50 hehe

AFDirt,
Excellent! How do you like them? I have a set I was gonna install, but the old lights are still working.
JC

I haven't actually seen them at night, so I don't know. The clock light is nice.

My old lights were working alright too, but I figured it was time to do a little something nice for the beast that's carried me around so far and wide. I'll take a picture tonight of how they look in the darkness.

I also wired up my GPS unit and mounted it, but need to find a better place to mount it than the suction-cup to my tach. It doesn't stick to the inside of the windshield without glue, but we'll see.

Hmmm. I've had BMW's that sat out in lots of rain (PNW) and never fogged their instruments. My only Ducati though, did it bad. Made them unreadable. The Seattle dealer for Ducati recommended I drill holes in their undersides to let them drain! My guess was that bikes are manufactured to hold up in the environs where they're made. Lots of sun in Italy. In Germany, well...

Okay, finally saw the gauges with the lights working. They look great! They're a little blueish, but still look much better than before. I'm glad I got these installed.