Hi, I know this has been covered before but looking for any updates on the best process. My 748 is due its MOT and last time the tester noted how poor the headlight was, so I feel I should try and clean the inside of the lens. Don't really want to take it apart - but will if necessary. Piece of stick pocked through the bulb hole, with XXXXXX attached to the end soaked in YYYYYYY?? TIA Neil
A wooden spoon handle with a piece of cotton cloth wrapped over the end, meths or WD40 will shift the white fogging. Sadly there’s no way other than to disassemble the headlight unit and remove the bulb assembly,
fuck, not again.. you've seen how much these fetch second hand, so it ought to be obvious that preservation is essential/important. You don't need anything other than warm water and diluted (non salty) washing up liquid and a modified old toothbrush. if you use anything acidic or alkalinic then you risk damaging the "mastic" that bonds the glass to the main headlamp body. I have seen headlamps where the glass is on the verge of detaching from headlamp body, is it worth risking this? https://www.ducatiforum.co.uk/threads/misty-front-lamps.42378/
I just did mine. Soap and water. I used a bottle cleaner brush and washy up liquid. Edit: Leave it to soak too, it softens up and just falls off
Did you remove the headlight or do it in situ? I'm weighing up whether the additional effort is worth it? Thanks
I took the headlight off. Its very easy to do. Remove fairing, unplug bulbs and remove. Remove adjuster screw bottom centre (careful with spring) then slide headlight out. Then unscrew all the bits and bobs of the projector light and remove until you have just the light itself. Takes 10-15 mins. Clean projector lens too as that has this white mould on it too. I just wiped it with soapy cloth.
Definitely take the extra effort to remove the light fully and clean. That way you can strip down the dipped beam projector and clean the lens properly. The front of the projector lens gets cloudy too, but so does the back and you need to open projector to clean the back of it. I found using windowlene and other spray stuff didn’t clean the glass for long and the cloudiness started coming back. I used glass polish on mine and they are crystal clear now. If you do go for removing the light completely, turn the lights on and mark on garage wall or something where the light shines, that way you can roughly realign the light close enough when refitting. Also if you use any liquid to clean the glass, put the lights in the oven at 80 centigrade for 10 min, this dries all moisture out and you won’t end up with Misty lamps when you use your lights next. As mentioned, stay well away from the chrome reflectors, the coating is very thin and prone to peeling. to access the dipped beam you need to remove these two 8mm nuts (could be 7mm , can’t remember) that will expose the projector unit. There are 6 screw in total. The 4 black ones hold the projector into the headlamp , the middle two gold ones allow you to remove the back of projector to clean it properly. after removing 4 black screws you can remove complete projector and clean main headlamp lens with glass polish. access to the main beam glass requires the bulb holder to be unscrewed and a long implement used to clean the glass. I use a wheel cleaning brush which is a long thin paintbrush type thing with a round 1” brush on the end. That allowed me to clean main beam glass properly once you have removed projector unit you can clean the front off it (ignore broken glass, this is an old light I used for the pics And once you remove the two gold central screws , the back comes off and you can clean inside the projector too which gets equally as dirty. a couple of before and after comparisons and my lights were barely dirty at all to begin with And back on the bike.
So this evening I've removed fairing, nose cone and the headlight unit! Thanks to @Chris for his advice and @Slingy123 for the really helpful photos. Tomorrow, time permitting, I'll take the dip beam assembly apart. Wiring to dip beam also looks a bit dodgy so good opportunity to tidy that up. When you've been sat in front of two screens all day this is quite therapeutic! Cheers Neil
Glad you’re doing it properly. It’s far more satisfying that way. Definitely don’t touch that chrome reflector, it’s looking a little flaky already and will peel as soon as you touch it ! Good luck with it, bike will look nice a fresh with some clean eyes
So cleaned the inside of the reflectors with this brush with the Ducati Owners Club visor cloth (knew it would come in handy!) wrapped around it and a lens cleaner spray that the optician gave me (ethylene glycol monobutyl ether). The internal lens in the dip beam got a very careful wipe and I left the chrome reflector well alone. I've just realised that the wiring loom for the headlights detaches really easily - I'd removed the connectors at the bulb and side lights leaving the wires attached to the bike - Doh!. At least I can now reassemble it all off the bike which is much easier. So my conclusion is that even changing a bulb is easier if you remove the whole headlamp assembly rather than trying to fiddle about with it in situ. Final assembly and attaching to the bike tomorrow. Thanks for all the advice. Neil
