Question for those of you who installed Wunderlich bars on your GS...

[Marc]

For those of you who installed the Wunderlich crash bars on your GS - there is a drilled tab on each side at the junction of the two main support bars (above the cylinders) that looks like you could mount fog or driving lights there. Any of you try it yet?

I've thought of putting PIAA 959's there, but in looking at my 910's (mounted separately - same size), they look like they wouldn't fit due to tank clearance. Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Marc

[Gyromaniac]

In addition to adding the Piaa bracket with Piaa aux lights, I replaced the stock bulbs in the head lights with 100w H1's making night riding much easier for me.

I found the bulbs at a truck supply store for around $25 each. The difference between this price and what the BMW dealer wanted for the same bulbs bought me two tanks of gas and a 6-pack of good beer. (Or was that one 6-pack of gas and two tanks of beer . .)



FWIW

[Paul Young]

I have done this same change to my R11.5 but only to the dipped beam. I wasn't sure that the wiring/switch would happily take the extra current. The 100w H1 bulbs are £5.50 here at Motorworks

Thanks for making me relax a bit. I'll go get the other bulb now for the high beam

Paul.

[Dom]

Originally posted by Gyromaniac
In addition to adding the Piaa bracket with Piaa aux lights,

FWIW

What bracket are you referring to? I don't see any PIAA brackets mentioned on either www.piaa.com or www.cbtimports.com. TIA for any additional info.

:

[Gyromaniac]

The parts guy at Beaudry (BMW) Motors assured me switching both would work.
I just put 1,000 miles on the bike, using heated grips AND my heated Gerbing's gloves for much of the ride.
So far, so good.

KOW ("knock-knock-knock")

[Curmudgeon]

Man, you people are risk takers. Isn't the stock system 55w? I'd go to 60w, but increasing the current to almost double is asking for electrical trouble. Just because you haven't had any yet, doesn't mean you won't. Given how BMW pinches pennies for profit's sake (like all companies), then I'd bet that they left no extra "current room" in the head light wiring and ect. I think that buy $1000 HIDs would in the long term be cheaper than over currenting the existing wiring harness.

Just my two cents.

Patrick

[Gyromaniac]

What bracket are you referring to?

My invoice says: Piaa light bar, part R1150LB.

It's a nicely finished aluminum bar
that mounts to the underside of the beak,
right into the black bracket.
It retails for $119.
Not cheap, but tidy, quick and clean.

Hope this helps!

[Gyromaniac]

Man, you people are risk takers. Isn't the stock system 55w? I'd go to 60w, but increasing the current to almost double is asking for electrical trouble.

You're right, and I may just expose my ignorance here, but these still are "55w" bulbs.
According to the guys at both the BMW dealership and Titan Truck, where I bought the bulbs, they only draw 55w current.

This would be a good question for the Colonel.

[Dom]

Originally posted by Razorbak

OTOH, if I go with fog lights, they'll probably work better if they're mounted lower down on the bike.

One potential drawback of mounting lights on the Wunderlich crash bars is that the light bracket mounting holes would put the lights exactly where you want to stretch your leg out on long trips... right across the top of the cylinder heads.

I am also considering putting fog lights on Wunderlich crash bars, and so far, everything I've heard and read indicates this is a good setup. Fish said he's satisfied with his PIAA 959s on his crash bars, but I don't remember if his are Wunderlich.

[Marc]

For those of you who try to do what I was talking about above - you better have a drill handy... I finally got around to removing one of my PIAA 910's from my bike and tried to test my theory. Well, what I found was the bolt coming off the bottom of the PIAA is too large to fit through the hole in the tab on the Wunderlich bars!

Since the hole was too small, I wasn't able to determine if the PIAA 910 and 959 style lights would fit without contacting the tank. It looked like it would fit with about 1/8" clearance, but that's just a guess.

If you have the bars already installed on the bike, you can just remove your tank (so you can get at the tab with a drill), drill out the hole in the tab a bit, and then check for clearance. I'm giving up. Don't need fog lights that bad...

Marc

[fish]

I would have quoted gyro, but got this at the top of my nutscrape window: : parse error, expecting `T_STRING' or `T_VARIABLE' or `T_NUM_STRING' in
/usr/local/www/www.advrider.com/data/forums/newreply.php(36) : eval()'d code on line 2

Anyway, allow me to try my hand at this...

You're right, and I may just expose my ignorance here, but these still are "55w" bulbs.
According to the guys at both the BMW dealership and Titan Truck, where I bought the bulbs, they only draw 55w current.

55W bulbs *cannot* put out 100W. There's this silly little thing called physics that gets in the way. For reference, check out Ohm's Law (W = A x V).

Then again, I suppose you could get those mystical PIAA Superwhite bulbs that are actually rated at 55W but put out 100W of advertising on the package

[Baldy]

Originally posted by fish
I would have quoted gyro, but got this at the top of my nutscrape window: : parse error, expecting `T_STRING' or `T_VARIABLE' or `T_NUM_STRING' in
/usr/local/www/www.advrider.com/data/forums/newreply.php(36) : eval()'d code on line 2

Sorry about that. I was tweaking a few little things yesterday and decided I didn't like the way quotes always end up bold. So I did an eensy-weensy tweak and fumbled. Should be working now.

[fish]

Originally posted by Baldy



Sorry about that. I was tweaking a few little things yesterday and decided I didn't like the way quotes always end up bold. So I did an eensy-weensy tweak and fumbled. Should be working now.

Yup...well done, cueball.

[Gyromaniac]

Originally posted by fish

55W bulbs *cannot* put out 100W. There's this silly little thing called physics that gets in the way. For reference, check out Ohm's Law (W = A x V).

Then again, I suppose you could get those mystical PIAA Superwhite bulbs that are actually rated at 55W but put out 100W of advertising on the package

Typical fishism . . . I already admitted exposing my ignorance . . .


You're right about the high intensity package.
Too bad I can't read any of it.
The only thing it says in English is
"H1-55w -->100w"

Can you explain what that means, oh Sage One?

[fish]

Originally posted by Gyromaniac


Typical fishism . . . I already admitted exposing my ignorance . . .

you may be too pid, but at least you're a better rider than i am.

You're right about the high intensity package.
Too bad I can't read any of it.
The only thing it says in English is
"H1-55w -->100w"

Can you explain what that means, oh Sage One?

Sorry, caint hep ya gyro...i can't read Japanese.