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Iridium
bulbs for your ZXR!!!
by
Robert Burgoyne (robB) |
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has come up before on the ZXR world forum, the subject
of iridium bulbs. The typical question being, "where
can I get them?" The simple answer appears
to be you can’t. It’s just a case of living without
them while everyone else runs around with nice bluey
type headlights that look really cool. Here’s a
picture of what they should look like. |
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So
why don’t they fit? Here is the problem. As can
be seem in the picture (left) (or look on your headlight
if you don’t believe me) there are three recesses
for the bulb tags. Now, the ones for the ZXR are
pretty much set at 12 o’clock, 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock,
these are circled in red, don’t worry about the
blue one, this is explained later. The problem is
that the iridium bulbs do not come with the tags
in this arrangement. They come with the bottom two
tags set further down, so when you go to put your
lovely iridium bulbs in they are not going to fit,
so you have just wasted some of your hard earned!
But do not despair! |
The
solution! Now, if we look at the picture of an
iridium bulb we can see that the tags are set
further down. In this picture they aren’t there
because I didn’t cut them! I have however, circled
where they where in yellow. But, what has
been done with this bulb? Well, to get round the
problem of them fitting in properly, the two bottom
tags have to be cut off! To be honest I didn’t
cut them off, a previous owner had, and the bulbs
were literally sitting in there crooked!
So
a new problem is cutting the tags off without
ruining the filament. As I didn’t do this, I can
only suppose how it was done. The only few ideas
I came up with were:
- Cutting
them off with a hacksaw (possible dodgy for
the filament through vibration).
- Cutting
them off with a pair of metal sheers (scissors
for metal).
-
Bending the tags till metal fatigue caused them
to fall off.
- A
Dremmel tool (as with hacksaw vibration could
be a problem).
Obviously
if you have a much better idea I suggest you use
that, remember I am only supposing here! But when
done it should look like this: |
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Now
they are cut off your light should fit straight
in shouldn’t it? Nope. There’s still work to be
done. If we refer back to the picture with three
red circles you’ll see there is also an additional
blue circle. This highlights the next problem;
with original ZXR bulbs there is a bit missing
from the side of the bulb chassis, this is filled
with a small pip on the bulb recess, of course
you still can’t fit on your iridium bulbs!
The
next job is to file away this pip. It is only
made of plastic so is filed away easily; it just
takes a bit of time and you need to do this to
each bulb fitting. An easier way to file this
off would be to use (once again) a dremmel tool,
this will certainly speed up the process compared
to sitting there with a file; believe me! You
also need to consider the dust that comes off
from filing away, try not to get it in your headlight!
You could prevent this by stuffing the hole (ooer!)
with a rag. Of course I didn’t do this but as
they say hindsight is a wonderful thing! But if
you can put the rag in so it’s not in the way
then all the better! It will also help if you
tip the headlight up so that any dust will just
fall straight out, this is slightly awkward but
with the rag in as well you are minimising the
amount of crap going into the headlight.
So,
you are now ready to insert your bulbs! Obviously
if they are still a little awkward to get in you
need to file away some more at that pip. But remember,
make sure you are having fun while doing this;
any problems/questions just post them on the forum!
Your lights will now look like this, enjoy! |
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