The kits I bought came from www.triumph-online.co.uk who also trade under the name Square Deals Motorcycles.
As a company I highly rate them. I get most of my service parts from them. Always
friendly, always prompt delivery, always good prices. What more can you ask.
These HID kits are designed for bikes with high quality resin cased ballast units to
better deal with the kind of vibrations that you get on a bike, as opposed to a car kit
that has been adapted for a bike.
The ballasts are the ultra slim units, not much bigger than a credit card and about
12mm thick.
This is the complete kit contents.
35watt 6000k colour temperature. That is almost pure white with a very tiny tintof
blue, in other words about as close to natural daylight as you can get with an artificial
light.
The bulb is inside a plastic cup to protect it.
A close up of the ballast unit. Its very well made and solid. Much better than someof
the cheap chinese ballasts Ive seen sold on Ebay.
If you were to take any one piece of advice from this page it should be this.
These kits are top notch and designed for bikes and come recommended. But
wherever you choose to buy them from, make sure you get a quality ballast. The
cheap chinese ones get too hot, can catch fire and can possibly cause damage to your
bike.s electrical system.
DONT buy cheap ebay deals. Buy from a reputable source, buy quality and buy once.
Fitting them. On the Sprint ST you can just about get at the dipped beam bulms, but
the main beam is behind the clocks, so if you are replacing all three lights like me, its
time to strip off the front fairing/nosecone. If youdont know how to do this, look at
the Sprint ST bodywork page.
Once you have removed the nose and the light unit which doesnt take long, remove
the standard bulbs. Remove the plastic cup covers from the HID bulbs and just fit
them in as a direct replacement.
Then refit the headlight and nose unit back on the bike.
Use the plastic cup that was protecting the hid bulb as a template as it is the perfect
size and cut a hole into each of the dust/water covers.
Take the time to do this neatly as this is going to keep the water out the back of lights.
Connect the HID leads to the your headlight connectors on the bikes loom then
carefuly feed the connector into the back of the headlight. If you are careful,
connector just fits into the headlight and sits next to the back of the buld between the
black plastic housing of the headlight unit and the back of the reflector.
Then slide the rubber grommet on the HID leads so it sits tight against the original
rubber water cover and slide the double lip into the hole you cut till it pops into place.
If you cut the hole carefully, this will be a watertight seal.
If you cocked it up and have a messy hole, some bathroom sealent or clear mastic will
make it watertight.
Now you have to mount the ballasts.
On the Sprint ST there is a perfect shelf for this in the space behind the clocks. I
doubled back with the leads and mounted the inline resistors here as well which are
almost as big as the slimline ballast.
It looks a little crowded and I was at first concerned about heat build up, but my fears
were groundless and it has never ever been an issue.
Fit the ballast units before you refit the clock unit. It gives you a lot more space to
work in.
And here is the same view as above with the clocks refitted.
This is the ballast units for the two dipped lights now fitted.
That leaves the ballast for the main beam. Ive seen some solutions fitting it under the
yolks and moving the horn and similar, but that seems to me to just be creating
yourself extra work and making something simple, less simple. So why do it?
A quick scout around the bike shows the perfect place to be under the left infill panel.
There is a metal solenoid or resistor next to the cooling system expansion tank. I
stuck the ballast to that with some double sided velcro and made sure it was secure
with two zip ties. There is no issue at all with reach as all the cables are ample length.
And another view of the main beam ballast.
Once thats done, use a bunch of cable ties to tidy up any loose cabling by zipping all
the leads to the wiring loom that loops around the underside of the nose cone. Dont
be shy with the zip ties. You dont want any cables coming loose and snagging in
anything when you are moving
Without the engine running the lights make quite an audiable whine as they start up, but try not to do this and leave the
engine not running.
When the lights start they draw considerable power from the battery, so once the ignition is on start the engine asap.
When I went out in the evening to take some pictures of the beam pattern the battery on my camera was flat. And I still
havent gotten around to taking them.
I will and I will add them up here soon, but in the mean time, you will just have to take my word for it that the difference
is AMAZING. With all three lights on its like a pool of daylight in front of the bike.
