A headlight question

[William.T]

Hello
My 2007 GS500 has some bad rust damage all over, including the headlight:

My plan was to remove the lens, so I could fix the rust and repaint it, but I'm not sure if that it's possible?


Is the inside mirror connected to the lens itself?

Regards, William

[ShowBizWolf]

Hiya William.T !

That certainly is some crazy rust! That headlight doesn't look like OEM GS500... is it? The stock headlight bucket comes apart from the lens very easily. Back when I still had one on my bike, I removed the bucket and soaked it in Evapo-rust and then sanded, primed and painted.

The part you've got in your pictures... does that go into a bucket that mounts to the bike?

Here are a few pics to show the OEM parts I'm talking about...
Lens that goes into the bucket:


Bucket that mounts to the bike:

[William.T]

Hey Wolf
I'm not sure if it's OEM, but it looks like yours; it even has the little sticker.
The pictured part is the one that goes into the bucket, yes. My fingers are holding where the bulb goes

I wanted to take off the frost, clear plastic because there's some rust on the sides (underneath the second chrome ring).

[mr72]

I agree that's not the original part, but anyway...

On a normal sealed-beam H4 headlight like a normal GS500E has on it, then the "reflector" and "lens" are all one assembly. There's a "ring" that affixes from the back with screws to hold the sealed H4 assy around its edge. The entire headlamp assembly is made of glass, including the back of the reflector.

In your picture it looks like there are mounting tabs of some kind that are of a unit with what looks like a stamped steel reflector. You have apparent rust on what would be glass on a normal GS500 headlight. Also that hole in the back of your headlight near your thumb in the pic also indicates this is not a sealed-beam headlamp assembly.

Anyway ... the other giveaway is you report a 2007 GS500F which has a pointy fairing on the front with the headlight integrated, not a round headlight like your pictures. The original front end of a GS500F would look like this:



So if you have an '07 GS500F and that headlight came off it, then someone has retrofitted some kind of round headlight to it. In that case who knows what's on there? Or maybe you meant to say this is a GS500E [which were made until 2000] or ??

[William.T]

Ah, okay. I will refrain from trying to remove the lens, then

It has no letter code, since it's made in Spain, but it would be an E, since there's no oil cooler on there.