Lost a headlight temporaryly, 2013 Tenere 7500 miles

[rfulcher]

Last night I was installing heated grips and when I started the bike the left head light did not work. The right was fine. I took the bulb out and it looked good and tested for continuity with an ohm meter. Just as a test I put the right bulb in the left socket and it worked. Okay fine, I have a bad bulb. I put the "bad" bulb originally from the left socket and it worked. WTF? I took a very short ride and everything stayed fine.

Any comments?

 

[Wanderer]

Re: Lost a headlight temporaryly, 2013 FJR 7500 miles

Howdy,
I have experienced head light bulbs burning out then coming back to life. What I have found is after burning out the loose ends of the filament will bounce around inside the bulb as you ride, if by chance they hit they will "weld" them selves back together. You can usually see this if you examine the filament very closely.
Later,
Norm

 

[snakebitten]

Re: Lost a headlight temporaryly, 2013 FJR 7500 miles

Ah, the ole one bulb out, mess with it, comes back on, can't find anything wrong now, story.

Definitely one of the Teneres idiosyncracies.

 

[rfulcher]

Re: Lost a headlight temporaryly, 2013 FJR 7500 miles

Ah, the ole one bulb out, mess with it, comes back on, can't find anything wrong now, story.

Definitely one of the Teneres idiosyncracies.

So this has happened to others, weird.

 

[tomatocity]

Re: Lost a headlight temporaryly, 2013 FJR 7500 miles

Whee does the 2013 FJR 7500 miles fit in?

 

[rfulcher]

Re: Lost a headlight temporaryly, 2013 FJR 7500 miles

Whee does the 2013 FJR 7500 miles fit in?

Title corrected to Tenere, thanks.

 

[Brick]

I too have had that. Replaced bulbs and left the "burned out" one on the work bench. Then a few miles later the other one went out. Hmmm... so I decided to test the "burned out" one and it measured ok with the ohm meter. Put it in and it worked.
I believe the the H7 bulbs are crap.
Now I'm not saying that this gas anything to do with when both lights went out on a trip back in October. That failure took a new ECU to fix! I don't wish that on anyone! :-(


Brick

 

[snakebitten]

First time happened to me was a Rental S10 in Melbourne. I was hooking them down a washboard dirt road through the Alpine region. Noticed when I came to a stop and the lights were reflecting off the side of a forest restroom building. Right one was out. Thought it was burnt out from the beating.
Riding a bit later I noticed it was back on.

Got dark and raining and I was a long ways from my bed that night. Bulb went out. Sucked. I KNEW it wasn't burned out.

Pulled the cap. Barely touched the wire\connector and it lit back up.

Figured it was a short. Not my bike. Not my problem.

And then the mother of all headlight harness threads popped up on the forum. My own Tenere suffered a mild case of it.

Cleaned, filed, tightened, and haven't had it happen again.

 

[Checkswrecks]

Last night I was installing heated grips and when I started the bike the left head light did not work. The right was fine. I took the bulb out and it looked good and tested for continuity with an ohm meter. Just as a test I put the right bulb in the left socket and it worked. Okay fine, I have a bad bulb. I put the "bad" bulb originally from the left socket and it worked. WTF? I took a very short ride and everything stayed fine.

Any comments?

As others said, the filament broke and welded. You are on a very short amount of borrowed time.


Since part of bulb failure is age and part is vibration (load), replace them both soon.

 

[scott123007]

It's probably not a bad bulb, but a bad connection. It's the only reason the headlight harnesses fail. Give the connectors a little squeeze and put a little Vaseline on them. Problem solved.

 

[Mzee]

I lost one yesterday after 60000km and replaced it with a new one. Globe will perish anytime. You are lucky if yours last as mine has done.

 

[Gee-Tee]

Mine was doing that recently and when I went to change the bulb I noticed the connector was melted. Yamaha ordered and installed a new headlight harness and all is well.

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T using Tapatalk

 

[Taz1209]

Check your harness...plenty of reading about it here...

http://www.yamahasupertenere.com/index.php?topic=2707.0

 

[rfulcher]

Check your harness...plenty of reading about it here...

http://www.yamahasupertenere.com/index.php?topic=2707.0

No signs of heat at the harness or connectors. Connectors were tight.

 

[rfulcher]

Well the left bulb went out again. It was not the bulb. It was the plug on the harness. Just like at least 5 posters suggested. This is what the plug looks like now.


When the bulb went out the first time one month and 500 miles prior there was no overt evidence of heat damage. So a question for those who have replaced the harness. Is this harness hard to replace and does the upgraded harness include the harness for left and right headlights?

 

[Checkswrecks]

Not hard but Yamaha is good about replacing them even out of warranty. It's also the way to get the harness for free because they don't just hand them over the counter.