What is this?

[dtrider]

I had my bike up on the center-stand while I was working on some wiring under the seat. I straightened out the front wheel, and this thing dropped out of the the front of the fairing.

Any idea what it is? It appears to be some sort of adjuster, but I'm not sure what for.

/dwight

[MikeB]

It looks like part of the headlight adjuster but I have no idea why it would fall out of its assembly.

[dtrider]

I think you are right. If I look up from under the fairing I can see one on the right headlight, but not on the left. There is a wire hanging down and I'm wondering if that caught it and pulled it off. I'll have to chase down that wire to figure out why it is hanging loose, but in the meantime how critical is that part of the adjuster? I really never adjust my headlight level, so if I can get by without it for now I'll just leave that until the next time I'm in there.
/dwight

[MikeB]

I do not know how the adjuster works, what it rotates or how secure the inner working of it are. That knob is used to turn a shaft, I believe, which in turn will adjust the beam vertically. Without it in place, I do not think the beam will move but this is all new territory for me. I have replaced headlights after an accident in the past but I didn't tear it apart to see how it works. You will be forging new territory.

You may be able to just pop it back into place.

Hopefully you will let us know how it plays out.

[dtrider]

Well, I finally got back to this today. This is indeed part of the left headlight adjuster, and without that piece in place that headlight will not move, even when trying to use the adjuster motor. The right headlight is still adjustable. I was not able to simply pop that part back in to place, so at a minimum I will have to pull the adjuster assembly out to see what I can do. If I have to replace the whole assembly it looks like it will be in the neighborhood of $70-$80 for a replacement part. I'm not willing to pull the old one out just yet (too many other things to work on around the house at the moment), so I'm just going to let it be for now and maybe sometime in the next couple of weeks I'll be able to take another stab at it. Thankfully it looks like it isn't all that critical as long as I don't need to adjust the headlights.

/dwight

[tamathumper]

From memory it pops back on hard, if you have it aligned with the adjuster rod.