Now New owner of a 1400

[BlueDragon]

You can see in these pics, that in the Honda bucket, the suzuki rubber mounts won't sit flush unless we grind the raised area flat.

In the Suzuki bucket they sit nice and flat.

[BlueDragon]

So, again, using my dremel with a metal grinding bit, I slowly ground down the raised areas so that they were flat and the rubber mounts would fit flush.

[BlueDragon]

Next step is now to grind away about 1/2mm on both sides of the lower adjustment bracket on the Honda Headlight bucket so that the plastic screw that is used on the Suzuki adjustment bracket can fit.

In the pic you will see the arrow pointing to the left side of the bracket.  But you need to shave about 1/2 mm on both sides.  Again - using the dremel with the grinding bit made things very easy.

Doing this will enable you to use all the parts from the Suzuki headlight.

[BlueDragon]

Now once this is all done.

If you purchased or have a Honda Headlight bucket and trims, you simply need to unscrew the mounting trims from the halogen headlight and install them onto the new LED headlight.

Use the included adjustment brackets that came with the new headlight. This allows for side to side adjustment of the headlight aim.

Sorry, no pics of this, but will take some today and upload them later on to this part of the instructions.

[BlueDragon]

Next step is to now remove the the Suzuki Headlight.  Just take note of which side each part of the wiring harness came from in regards to the left and right side holes in the headlight bucket.  So you can put them back through in the same spot for the Honda bucket.

Also be careful when you remove the lower up down adjustment screw, nut and spring.  That spring will go flying off and the nut will drop down on the ground and roll off somewhere where you can't find it, if you are not careful.

I tend to put an old blanket on the floor under my bikes for that reason - if I miss something the nut/screw will land on the blanket and stay there and not ricochet off somewhere and leave me swearing when I can't find it.

[Eric GSX1400K3]

Awesome posts Blue Dragon, and a great mod. I see the Aliexpress headlight is very similar to the Stedi unit, with the differences being the mounting tabs on the Ali units. Looks great and your detailed information and step by step guide is also great.

[BlueDragon]

Mounting up the Honda bracket..

DON'T install the rubber mounts of side bolts yet..

First thing you need to do is mount up the lower up/down adjustment screw, spring and nut. Easiest to do this first.

Put the wiring harness through the holes, so that it is not in the way.

The difficult part of this is that the spring needs to go in a different position compared to the suzuki one.  When I first did this, I wasn't sure if the spring was long enough to provide enough tension for the adjustment.  But when you see the picture, you will see that I was kinda right and kinda wrong.  I put in a spacer I had to put more tension on the spring.  But looking at the picture, you can see that I still could have used a spacer, but not one that was as big, or maybe no spacer at all. 

You can be the judge on that one if you think you need a spacer or not.  You will need some small washers however.  One to go between the spring and the honda headlight bucket area so that the spring stays where it is as the hole that the screw goes through is quite large, so the washer will stop the spring from being caught in the hole.

The picture is after I adjusted the up/down headlight aim to proper specifications.  More on how I did that one later in this saga..

Anyway, look at the pic and you will see that the spring needs to go in-between the 2 brackets.  This is the most fiddly part of this installation.  But once done, you are pretty much on the home stretch.

[BlueDragon]

OK, once this is all done, you can now install the Suzuki OEM rubber mounts into the Honda Headlight bucket and then use the OEM bolts/nuts to mount up the sides of the headlight.

The Aliexpress LED headlight is a plug and play harness in regards to the headlight part as the plug just goes into the H4 headlight plug.  If you bought the headlight that does not have the halo ring, you are pretty much done.

Mounting the headlight into the bucket is a  bit different to the Suzuki headlight.

With the Honda mount, you need to put the top of the headlight on the top of the bucket.
now tilt the bottom upwards but keeping the top parts touching.  Give it a small push at the top so that the alignment tabs slip in. Once that happens, tilt the bottom of the headlight back down and it will just fit straight into the bucket.

Use the 2 screws that came with the Honda headlight to screw in the headlight into the bucket (like the Suzuki headlight - on the sides) and you are done.  You just need to now aim the headlight, which I will cover below.

If you bought the halo ring headlight you have another step.

Again - sorry no pics on this - but I will take some and upload later today.

You will have a  yellow wire included with your headlight if you have the halo ring headlight like I do.

With the 1400 - well with my K3, there was a small black plug that connected to nothing in the headlight. I believe this would have been for a 5w park light if the OEM headlight had one.  One of the wires on this plug is earth - from memory the black with white striped one.  The other is switched power - which is what you want for the halo ring as the yellow wire is for the halo ring.

Simply strip back the switched wire plastic and cut the yellow wire to length and solder it up.  I recommend solder as I hate scotch locks - those things are a nightmare. They might work for a while, but then they stop working due to movement/vibration and could leave you in a world of hurt. So I have always soldered my wiring. 

TIP - leave the bullet connectors in use on the yellow wiring.  As that way if you need to remove the headlight, you simply unplug the headlight plug and then the bullet connector on the yellow wire for the halo ring.

Don't forget to insulate the soldered wire - just use some electrical tape or heat shrink.

Once that is done, mount the headlight into the bucket as per the directions above.

[BlueDragon]

OK.  Now for the headlight aim.

When I was mounting the trim rings from the honda headlight onto the LED headlight, I did a rough eye-ball aim with the left right - just got the whole thing looking even.  But you can adjust this more once we get the up-down height adjustment done.

For my headlight aim - I was able to do this in my workshop as it is the size of a 6 car garage...and doubles as my man cave/gym/workshop etc.

Measuring 7.5 metres from the front of the headlight to a wall.
Then measure the height of the headlight from the ground with you sitting on the bike.  Measure from the ground to the middle of the headlight.
On the wall make a mark at the same measurement as the height of the headlight.
Then make another mark 5 cm below.
This second mark is the one where you want to align the beam cut off line to.

With this headlight. There is a cut off where it is quite bright, but the cut-off isn't a hard line.  It is kind of, but not as hard a line as I have seen with other headlights. Just above the cut off line, there is a dimmer area and then the light stops.  I aligned the headlight so that the dimmer area was between the 2 lines mentioned above.  Do this with the adjustment screw on the bottom of the headlight.

Once this is done, you can then use the screw adjustment in the headlight trim if you need to adjust the left and right slightly.  I didn't need to do this.

Make the adjustments according to you sitting on the bike. 

It doesn't take too many turns for a big adjustment on  the adjusting screw.  Just had to hop on and off the bike a couple times.

OK. job now done..

Enjoy the headlight.


Saying that, I just want to say I am not in any way involved with the seller on Aliexpress or anything else.

I know that some people think that many products from China are cheap crap...  heck, I'm Chinese, and think that yeah - some stuff is rubbish, but I also know from touring the factories there, that a lot of stuff is very high quality as well. Just that labour costs are low due to poor wages, so the parts are cheaper.

Many years ago, I was a professional coach and have represented Australia on numerous occasions in overseas tournaments.  Some of which were in China/Taiwan and Korea.  At times my team was privileged enough to  meet many dignitaries and heads of business and as such have seen factories, where many high quality OEM parts have gone down one side of a conveyor belt to be stamped with a OEM stamp, whilst the same product which went down another conveyor belt was then stamped with an aftermarket brand name and hence sold for a cheaper price..    I'll leave it at that and won't comment any further, so please don't ask me to.  Suffice to say, some stuff is rubbish, whilst other stuff is in fact OEM quality but at a cheaper non-name brand price.

You make your own decision on that one.

[BlueDragon]

Parts list

Halo Headlight on Aliexpress.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32825866188.html?spm=a2g0s.8937460.0.0.7b472e0ef1VfQO

Non-Halo Headlight on Aliexpress
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32996646414.html?spm=a2g0s.8937460.0.0.7b472e0ef1VfQO

Honda Headlight on Aliexpress
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000983002643.html?spm=a2g0s.8937460.0.0.311a2e0eNDtXZW

This headlight can also be bought on Ebay as well..
With this headlight, you are only keeping the bucket and the mounting trims.  The reflector part of the headlight and the bulb are rubbish and are just thrown in the bin. But keep all the parts, as you will use them.  For $30, its cheap and you get a quality headlight bucket and the trims are also good quality as well.


Other things you will need.

Dremel with a metal grinding bit

22mm hole saw - this is used to cut the holes on the side of the bucket bigger to let the Suzuki OEM rubber mounts fit

Large hole saw to cut the second hole in the back of the Honda Bucket for the Suzuki Wiring harness

Some small washers - for the height adjustment screw/spring on the Suzuki headlight, to fit the Honda Headlight

Soldering iron and solder - if you decide to have the halo ring headlight

Various tools - screwdriver, spanners etc, which I will assume people have these.

[BlueDragon]

End Result..

Pics show low beam and then high beam..

[BlueDragon]

Awesome posts Blue Dragon, and a great mod. I see the Aliexpress headlight is very similar to the Stedi unit, with the differences being the mounting tabs on the Ali units. Looks great and your detailed information and step by step guide is also great.

Thanks.

I'm very happy with how it all turned out and the quality of the headlight output. 

I was getting tempted to go the Stedi headlight route. But didn't want the hassle of trying to make up a way to mount it.  Plus not being able to find any photos of the headlight output at night..  even when others have said it is good.. just put me off buying it - not to mention the price as well.  I couldn't justify the price when I don't ride at night much.  But this all comes in at an affordable price for a lot of people.  So I hope that what I've done has helped some members here.

More pics to come today of other steps that I didn't get pics of.

[BlueDragon]

Pics of the headlight, showing the mounting of the Honda Trim rings/mounts and the left right adjustment screws/mount brackets that came with the LED headlight.

You can see the plug and play headlight plug that will just plug into the Suzuki OEM plug for the H4 bulb.  The Yellow wire with the bullet plug next to it is for the Halo ring, if you buy that particular headlight.  If you buy the standard headlight then there is no yellow wire.

[BlueDragon]

Pic, showing the wiring.

Note I have tapped into the switched power wire on the black plug, for the yellow wire to power the halo ring.  I solder all my wiring joins like this.  But keeping the bullet connector means you won't have any hassles when you need to take the headlight off the bike for what ever reason.

[BlueDragon]

OK.

For those that don't want to do through drilling the mounting holes on the side of the honda headlight bucket to 22mm with a hole saw to fit the OEM Suzuki rubber mounts.

Here is the second option I was going to mention.

involves buying honda OEM parts.

Buying the parts in the picture - you will need 2 of them.  Means you don't need to drill out the side holes to be bigger, so you don't use the Suzuki rubber mounts. 

You also don't shave/grind down the raised ridges inside the headlight bucket either.

These parts as you can see are a flat piece of metal with a nut welded on.

These fit inside the honda bucket inbetween the raised parts that I shaved down in my instructions .

The long part of the metal plate is plastic coated and us used to keep the wiring in place as it is bendable.

Your choice.  But I preferred to keep the rubber mounting as it helps isolate the headlight from vibration, which  can only be a good thing.

You can see the part number in the picture if you decide to go down this path instead.  Just remember to order 2 of them.