I had to ride my 09 TE450 in the dark for the first time on Sunday (on the road to get home after trail riding). The headlight's not brilliant and I thought the dip beam needed adjusting down a little but that wasn't the main problem. When I switched to main beam I was confused - it was certainly brighter than the dip but in a horseshoe pattern with the light straight ahead cutting off very close to the bike and going just a little further ahead to the sides! I actually had a much better view on dip, which was dimmer but had a better spread of light and projected it further up the road. When I unscrewed the headlamp carrier, the bulb didn't appear to be attached to the back of the reflector in any solid way at all, it was just floating about. The white plastic socket that the bulb fits into has a spring clip but that just goes from one part of the socket to another and doesn't attach to the reflector. The socket does fit nicely into the back of the reflector but there's nothing to hold it there except the rubber shroud, which doesn't do the job very well (and presumably is only meant to keep water out). As a result, the bulb wasn't seated all the way into the reflector even before I touched it, which no doubt screws up the beam pattern. So, should the white plastic bulb socket be firmly attached to the reflector and if so how? I'm sure I could come up with a way to fix it but I'd like first to know how it's meant to be attached. Just noticed there's a pic on Coffee's TT post and it looks like the spring clip should stay in the neck of the reflector which would make sense as it would then hold the bulb in place; is that right? On mine, where the ends of the spring clip go into the neck each side it isn't a hole but instead an open ended slot so there's nothing to keep the clip in place - if you pull the bulb socket it just slides straight out. If there's normally a hole there maybe the plastic above it has broken off on my reflector? I'll also be looking for a brighter bulb, but that's a separate issue!
