Modern Vespa

I installed HiD bulbs in both the hi and low beams of my 250 and thought you might want to see how I did it (it should work for the 400 as well, they both use the H1 bulb). Added bonus in that it shows how to remove the windshield.

Do you like pictures? I hope so since there are over 40 in this posting.



First off we need to get to the lights so we start by prying off the Piaggio badge as shown.



Next we remove the screw that was under that badge.



Remove the V shaped cover piece.



Remove the 6 screws holding on the windshield and remove the shield. Man I need to replace those rusty screws.



Remove the 5 screws that secure the dash cover plate (I have no idea what is really called but I took all the photos so I'm naming it that) and remove the plate.

Ok great start but now we need to remove the radiator cover plate so lets move on.



Remove the two screws at the bottom of the cover, one on either side of the scoot.



Remove the two screws at the back of the cover again one on each side.



And finally remove the two screws on the top inside of the cover and remove the cover.



Unplug the lights.



Remove the bottom two screws, here you can see my screwdriver getting to the one on the right.



Remove the top two screws and remove the light unit from the bike.

Well well that was quick wasn't it? Let us break this up into a few separate posts so I can pad my numbers.

Post #2

Alright let's get to replacing that bulb



Looking at the back of the lighting unit, we need to remove that rubber cover



Cover is off and we can see the back of the bulb and the spring clips holding it in place. Slip off the spring clips and remove the bulb from the housing



Here is the bulb and the electrical connector once they are removed and the bulb unplugged.



Another shot of the connector, this will cause me some extra work as you will see shortly



A side by side view of the old bulb and the new HiD bulb, notice the HiD bulb has two separate connectors unlike the old bulb that just plugs into the connector.

The original connector has the power lead in the center of the connector and the ground is on the outer edge of it.



Hmm these might not play nice together.




I did plug the HiD into the connector and it did work but I didn't like the look of it and it seemed the lines were too exposed to each other, I needed another solution.

I thought about cutting off the original connector and soldering on some connectors that would mate with the HiD leads or even just soldering the wires together with no connectors but I wanted to be able to go back to original if needed



A trip to the hardware store resulted in these purchases. Four female and 8 male insulated connectors, half of which are shown here (more on why the extra male connectors in a bit). Another note is that I'm doing both the low and high beams so if you were only doing the low beams then you would only need half of the connectors. (edited to reflect the correct number of connectors needed for this mod on both the high and low beams, my math skills not so good)



No turning back now, I've snipped off the original connector (be sure to leave some wire attached to the connector, we'll get back to it soon)



Strip the leads from the light assembly (ground wire was 14 gage, power wire was 16 gage)




Here we are with the wires stripped.

All right plenty of pictures in this post so I'll break and continue on below.

Post #3




I am crimping the two female connectors onto the leads from the light unit.




Both the leads have the female connectors attached.




Snip and strip the HiD bulb power and ground leads




Crimp on two male connectors. I used blue connectors for the ground leads and the pink for the power leads on each end so it is easy to connect correctly.




Remember this part and those extra male connectors?




By crimping the male leads onto this connector I can unplug the HiD and plug the original connector and bulb right back in place. I almost broke my arm patting myself on the back for thinking of this.

Ok enough self admiration, time is slipping away.




We need a way to feed the HiD power lines through the rubber cover and the instructions call for a 7/8" hole for the grommet. I happened to have this bit and so I used it. I did it by hand, no drill as I was worried the flexible rubber would be difficult to hold in place while drilling.




Safety First!! I put on a glove to hold the cover while I turned the bit with my other hand.




It didn't take long to cut through the rubber and I had a nice round hole of the correct size.




Next is to feed the power leads that go to the ballast and igniter through the hole. Then feed the small end of the grommet through the hole to form a seal.




It should look like this.




Other side of the grommet.




Install the HiD bulb into the light assembly. The blue wire that runs along the length of the bulb is aligned on the bottom, this is important to get the bulb to seat in the assembly correctly. See that hole just to the left of the bulb? There is a matching peg on the base of the HiD bulb, make sure the peg goes in the hole.




Replace the spring clips and plug in the power and ground connectors.




Replace the rubber cover.


And moving on to the next post.

Post #4

Installing the Ballast and Igniter




A picture of the ballast (on the right) and the igniter.




How much do you love your scoot? You will need to cut on her in order to get this job done. I have used a Dremel to notch out the plastic just to the left of the red wire. The igniter wires are short and that was the only place I found to get them in position.




The ballast wire is longer and the connector was too big to go through any hole I could make in the area where I ran the igniter wires. I ran the ballast wire just in front of the suspension lock as you can see here. Also you can see where I ended up stashing the ballasts themselves.




Another picture of the ballast wire run.




Plug in the ballast wire. If you are doing both hi and low as I am make sure to plug the correct wire into the correct ballast.




Here is a shot of the ballasts mounted and zip tied in place.




Plug in the igniter wires (sorry for the out of focus shot, I didn't review the photos until it was too late to go back)




Re-install the lights and re-connect the power plug.




Test run!!! Whee it works! It really really works! You will note I have done the mod to have both the low and high beams on at the same time when the high beam is selected.

Sweet now just re-install the Radiator cover, Plastic dash cover, windshield, V-shaped plastic cover and the badge (anyone else have to look at their bikes booklet to see which way the Piaggio logo goes?) in the reverse order you took them off.




Time for a refreshing drink!!



Hmm need a test run when the sun goes down, better save the beer for later.

I hope you found this worthwhile, the posting of this took far longer than the actual job.

Great tutorial.

But I was wondering why you opted to go with this more intensive route of using HID lights that required all the cutting, drilling, splicing, removing windshield, etc VS using replacement PIAA Xtreme White bulbs (or similar) which would of only required changing the stock bulb?

Awesome tutorial.


We have someone to rval Joe Bulva in showing us how to work on our rides.

Great post!

very nice detail work Zinfan on those photos and explaination. This does need to go in the wiki.

The PIAA's are much better than stock bulbs but the HiD's are brighter yet. My MP-3 is my commuter bike of choice and since I work from 4 pm til midnight I spend almost half the time riding it at night on unlit roads, every little bit helps.

Thank you for reading along, it was fun to put together.

PIAA bulbs are a complete con I'm afraid. One of the UK motoring magazines tested them against big brands, such as Philips and Osram and they came out woefully.

On the other hand, installing gas discharge headlamps as a retrofit in the UK and Europe is completely illegal. The reflectors are not designed for the arc of light produced and can dazzle other drivers. So in our annual safety checks they would fail, once a beam analyser had been used. I'd love them, but for this reason, I would never use them.

Great post Zinfan! I only hope I can do half as well on the wiki I am wanting to do on evap removal. Oh and this should be a wiki too and I think this one might be universal to all three models.

I'm not sure why in my descriptions I sometimes use the word leads and other times I call them wires but you can just assume in this post leads=wires. I need an editor for this posting stuff.

gratz, extremely well done!

Indeed, I didn't say it before - great tutorial! (I just wish they were legal over here!) Have a thumbs up Zinfan....

Thanks. Great tutorial - although in the UK we can only use it to change lamps when they blow!

With a /500, not much use to me...

...but that doesn't keep me from admiring the incredible job you did writing it up, though. (Not to mention the great self-portrait at the very beginning.) Absolutely first rate.

I see you were fully prepared for drilling through rubber this time! (Inside footpeg reference)

Ha ha yes I had trouble with the floor mats of all things, the light housing not so much.

I was wondering if anyone would notice my reflection in the first pic, I don't usually take photos of myself and should have smiled then I guess. I would like to say that I don't run around with my cap on backwards unless I'm shooting photos when the bill of the cap gets in the way of looking through the viewfinder.

Very detailed work.
Thank you!

Wow Zinfan, lots seen here and very descriptive, excellent job! Yes, please do wiki as sticky requested, afterall it does deserve the attention and will make the job less intimidating (even to remove shield) to others.
thanks

Well I've had two night time commutes using the new Hid's and they are quite an improvement over the stock bulbs and even over the brighter non-Hid bulbs that I had installed earlier. No one has flashed me yet for having too bright a light beam and I've passed a number of cars on my rides. Of course this is with the low (dipped) beam on only, if I left the high beam HiD on I think an oncoming car would swerve into my lane and hit me and I'd deserve it, that high beam throws out quite a bit of light.

An absolutely great job with the pics and description. I used them to have our local shop install the HID lamps and they are phenomenal. Talk about lighting up the road at night.javascript:emoticon('')

With the help of this post and the lead from Bubbajon on DDM tuning HID kit, I now completed my first DIY mod (well, I've replaced my windscreen, but that doesn't really count).

Luckily all my wires are long enough, so I didn't have to cut up my MP3.

Thanks a lot for this awesome post/step-by-step instruction!!!

Glad you got some use out of it and congratulations on your first mod, I'm sure many more will follow eh?

Very nice documentation. You left nothing to the imagination, which is really good. So many times what really seems like a useful post leaves out a couple of details that may seem like no brainers to the person posting, but which stumps some of the people trying to figure out what they did.

Zinfan which mod did you do for both sets of lights to stay on??? did you paper clip/ or the one bubbajon did / or something else??? thanks

great stuff

did you have to adjust the bulbs at all or was it just install and the light pattern was good?

what mods would you recommend??

maybe something to improve my mpg? or should i change my riding style?



Maybe an exhaust?

No adjustments needed. I work from 4pm until midnight so half my miles are ridden in the dark and I never get flashed by oncomming drivers if I have only the low beam on.

Well you changed your windscreen which I find a big improvement over the stock item no matter which one you got. I have the Leo Vince exhaust and while it sounds better and is lighter I don't think you will see any performance improvements out of it. Dr Pully sliders are nice and do a search for "Fuzzy washer" here in the MP3 forum, that seems to work quite well for the 400/500 owners.

I did not use the paperclip method but only because I didn't know of it at the time I did the mod. I clipped the wires based on a post somewhere on this site but I can't remember what it was called. I think the paperclip method would work well, have not heard of anyone having issues with it.

Zinfan - Great post. I just went through the process today and I know I would have had a lot more issues without your detailed instructions and wonderful photos. Especially the bit about cutting a hole to run the wires. I had not taken the front off of my 250 before this, so the "how to" part was priceless. As Michelle said, you covered details that might seem obvious but would confuse a less experienced person.

I was hoping to avoid the wire cutting and connector install, but I agree with you that this is better all around.

Thanks and very well done.

Your humble grasshopper.

what type of hid kit do you use for scooters? i saw that it looks like theres an adapter. I'm assuming its not the same kit you would use for a car?

Very well done tutorial. Much appreciated. What lights and ballast did you use?

Thanks

I used the kit suggested by BubbaJon - It can be found here -

http://www.ddmtuning.com/Products/DDM-35W-55W-Single-Motorcycle-HID-Kit

I got the 35W - 5K temperature version, one for each headlight. From the photos it looks like Zinfan used the same model but I don't know about wattage or color. Mine have been in for a week and they are much brighter than stock.

Oops sorry guys didn't see the questions, I used DDMtuning kits that science guy linked. I used 55w ballasts and 5000K bulbs and I really like the white light they put out.

what would be the best bulb color?

5000K gives a nice white light, go hotter and it starts turning blue.

I agree with StooterBoy, 5000k is a nice white light not too yellow (lower temps) nor too blue (higher temps).

Well I did it just ordered my HID replacement lights for my 250 and will be using this post extensively on the installation of them once they arrive
thank you Zinfan for creating and documenting the change out on yours and making it so clear for those of us that are contemplating/doing this mod to ours