K1200 Aftermarket Xenon Headlight Bulb Installation

[GILLY]

By this time you're probably wondering; Is this REALLY a shortcut to just removing the headlight? Yes, yes it is.....

Ok, next we need to unplug the electrical connector for the windshield motor.

The connector is located inside the right side of the fairing (throttle side), in front of where the small storage compartment is. You can access the plug by loosening up the right side of the instrument cluster trim panel.

To be able to pull back on that panel, you need to remove what I call instrument panel bezel, that's the trim piece that actually has the holes in it for the speedometer and tachometer. I'll post a few pictures of this part just to make it easier for you to visualize how the bezel attaches.

• First there are 2 small Torx screws at the top corners, thay are T20. A T20 screwdriver works excellent for this if you have one, otherwise you will at least need an extension for a T20 bit to get to them.
  I never even removed them, just make sure they are screwed all the way out.

[GILLY]

• Besides these 2 screws, there are 2 tabs underneath the cluster which just need to be slightly pulled down, then the bezel will be off.

In this picture, my finger is under the cluster area pulling down on the tab and the bezel is coming off, and I will show a few other pictures.

It's really easy once you know where to find the end of the tabs.

[GILLY]

Here is the notch that the tab goes over, there is one on each side. If you look just inside the notch you see the square hole that the tab is locking on to when the bezel is fully in place.

[GILLY]

And finally a picture of the 2 tabs on the bezel.

Sorry the garage is so messy, I have a lot of projects going on now.
I half-figure that by the time the projects are all done, either my GT will have a nice varnish finish or I will have a rocking chair with 152 hp!

[GILLY]

• Now the 4 screws that I circled can be removed.

On my bike I had 2 different length screws. The ones in front of the storage box were longer than the other 2.
An online parts catalog shows them all as the same size.
I did have the right fairing panel off last winter, so it's possible I messed up, or the catalog is wrong.
Just pay attention and make sure you get your bike back together correctly.

We are almost to that electrical connector.
Hopefully you haven't forgotten why we are taking all this stuff off; the electrical connector for the windshield motor, remember?!

• Leave the lid for the storage box opened for the next step, it gives us more room.

This is another picture I had to go out and take after I had finished the job, which again explains why the bezel is installed, when in the instructions we just removed it.

[GILLY]

• Pull back on the right side of the panel now to see the connector, inside the red box. In the blue circle is a plastic wire tie that needs to be cut.

If you want to replace that wire tie, make sure you have one on hand.
I'll tell you how concerned I was about replacing that wire tie sometime.
I think that wire tie was installed as like step 2 or 3 in the BMW K1200GT Asssembly Manual in the motorcycle assembly plant.

• Cut that wire tie using a wire cutter, being careful of course to not actually cut a wire with the wire cutter.

• The connector can then be disconnected. Pull it out of the gray metal bracket and a small tab on the side is then pressed in while the connector is disconnected.

[GILLY]

And just a picture, with the windshield motor removed, of the area the electrical connector was in.

I don' think I need to show a picture of the windshield motor being removed. After all that work it is sort of anti-climactic.
Just help the connector through the hole, which you see at the top of this picture, above "The Genesis Wire Tie".

[GILLY]

In all seriousness, if you do want that wire tie replaced, do it now, before you get Xenon parts in your way and/or you forget. There is no handy access to the back side of that wall that the tie loops around, I think it would be more work than it's worth, just my opinion. Could be done though. I think the bike has to be in some incomplete stage when the factory install it.

[GILLY]

Well, here we are. That was easy, wasn't it.

• You can go ahead and take the bulb cover off, the tabs in the red boxes are pressed down, then the top of the cover will tilt back and then pull up on it.

[GILLY]

Just a picture of the back of the headlight,
I have circled the headlight connector.

• At this point you can remove the connector from the bulb and also remove the headlight bulb. The connector of course just pulls off, and there is a wire bale holding the bulb in.

• The top ends of the wire bales are pushed down and then to the outside to disengage. The bale will then drop down and the bulb can be removed. Pretty standard stuff.

Oh, and in this image, the instrument cluster is removed. I kind of went off on a tangent when you weren't looking. Gives a nice clear picture though. The wiring connector shown in the picture is for the instrument cluster also.

You do NOT need to remove the cluster to do this work.

[GILLY]

Time to start actually start messing with the Xenon part of this project.

REMEMBER don't touch the bulb glass, it can take a little concentration at times to not do that.

Some will recommend using disposable gloves in a case where you feel you might accidentally touch the bulb glass.

Here are my grubby mitts grasping the business end of 3000 lumens of dazzling Xenon power.

It's not hard at all to wire up.
The particular manufacturer blessed with my business made it all pretty simple.

• The red and black wires will plug in to where the old headlight plugged in. In this image you also see the Xenon bulb inside sort of a pill bottle. Makes you confident that the bulb hasn't been handled. The cover unscrews, and there is a collar around the base of the bulb which as to be removed.
  It wasn't hard but again I found I had to concentrate on not touching the bulb or letting the bulb touch anything else.

• To remove the collar, feed the red and black wires through that hole in the collar, then bring the collar to that rubber grommet near my hand. The grommet could be pressed through the hole easily. Then a few more connectors that you will see in a few more steps.

As an aside, the bulb cover I just removed can be used for storing the halogen bulb you just removed. You could bring it along on a trip and if for some reason the Xenon system closes up shop, it would not be difficult to convert it back to halogen.
I'll bet you could do it in the dark in under 10 minutes.

[GILLY]

The ballast just uses the power and ground that the old halogen headlight bulb used.

The ballast is placed outside of the headlight assembly. It's a little too big to be inside the headlight,
so the power has to get from the headlight bulb connector to outside the headlight.

In addition after the ballast gets this measly 12 to 14 volts beefed up to more like 20 THOUSAND volts, it then has to get this power to the Xenon bulb. Has to have a way in and out.

So yeah, get out the blowtorch. OK, actually an Exacto knife or I used a single-edge razor blade.

One handy feature of the K1200GT isn't the cruise control or muffler that looks like a chromed 40 gallon barrel, it's the headlight bulb access cover. It has a plastic frame but most of it is rubber. So it's easy to cut. The instructions that came with my Xenon kit says I need a 22mm access hole. The grommet I was holding in the previous picture is what fits in to this hole.

• So just go ahead and measure and cut the hole roughly in the middle of the cover. Neatness counts. A little.

If anyone would decide later that they aren't cut out for the fast paced life style of a Xenon headlight-owning BMW rider, this would really be the only part that would need to be replaced to get the bike back into original condition.

Or use duct tape.

Whatever.

[GILLY]

• And go ahead and install the grommet. Again watch out for that bulb glass.
  The bulb and red and black individual wires go on the "inside" of the cover.

• The connector with the red and black wires (lower left corner of image) will plug in to a corresponding connector on the ballast.

• The two wires up by my hand (which I STILL haven't washed even though I'm exposing it to the entire internet), are wires which power the bulb itself. They can only be plugged in to the correct connectors coming from the ballast.
  Which to many people sounds like a challenge I know. Do it right, you don't want to create a black hole in your headlight!

The labels on the bulb wiring (near the tip of my index finger), are "H7", for the type of halogen bulb this Xenon bulb replaces, and the other one says "4300K" which is the color range of the bulb I wanted.

[GILLY]

Here are the wires and bulbs on the headlight side of things.

• Wiring is simple, red is the power wire. On the bike, yellow is the power wire, so plug the red in to yellow.

• Black on the kit is the ground wire, on the bike brown is the ground wire, so plug those two together.

You will note in this picture that part that makes a Xenon conversion different than a factory Xenon headlight. Note the shape of the bulb base is like the base of the H7 Halogen you removed. A factory bulb does not have that style of base at all.

Don't worry, replacement Xenon bulbs with H7 bases are not too hard to come by.

[GILLY]

Here are the red and black power wires plugged in to the original Halogen light bulb connector.

• I first installed the Xenon bulb, again so it wouldn't accidentally get touched. Then I plugged in these power wires.

• The power connector can than just be put inside the headlight assembly, and the cover reinstalled.

Next we need to mount the ballast.