GL 1800 LED Headlights

LED Headlights have a few advantages over stock halogen bulbs. Light output vs power consumption is the biggest. In the last few years manufacturing techniques have vastly improved. The beam patterns are more controlled and more closely mimic the exact light source locations of the original halogens.

The bulb used in the GL1800 is a H7. BUT it has a gotcha. The wiring GL1800 wiring harness has a connector that doesn't match the spacing on the H7 bulb. Honda chose to use an adapter to mate them together. In order to make space for the adapter, the mechanical retainer for the bulb is set back 8 mm. There's a latch wire (for lack of a better term) that acts as a sort of spring to hold the spacer and bulb in the headlight assembly.

A H7 LED bulb by standard design, has a wire that exits the side or rear of the bulb. That wire goes to a regulaor "box". Another cable exits the box and it terminated with a standard width H7 male connector. The LED mechanical design presents an issue for the GL1800. The issue is how to make up the thickness of the Honda connector adapter and deal with the power connector.

There are a few Goldwing vendors that sell LED plug and play bulbs. Those bulbs have one two things in common. The first is that the wire exits the rear of the LED assembly. The second is that there is enough space between the rear of the H7 "flange" and the beginning of the heatsink. It's that space that allows them to INCLUDE a specifacally machined spacer ring to make up for missing Honda electrical adapter and allow the spring clip to secure the lamp in place.

I found this information out the hard way. My previous bike was a ST1300 that used H4 bulbs. It only required a pair of tabs to be removed and the bulb popped in place! Pictures are worth a thousand words, so these pics should speak volumes just by themselves.

Looking at the H7 bulb "face" three tabs are visible. Looking at the mounting system for the bulb, there's a notch at the top and a tab between the "bumps" at the bottom left and right sides.

H7 Bulb "Face"

This is the H7 mount that the "face" inserts into.

H7 bulb installed in the 33130-MAT-611 "socket"

Flange total width

Flange minimal width

Distance between tabs

A 8mm spacer needs to be added behind the "face" of a LED to mimic the thickness of the Honda socket. The short distance between the back side of the "face" and the body of the heatsink on THIS LED along with the needed spacer prevents the spring clip enough room to secure it in place.

The GL needs a LED with a removable heat sink to allow the boot to be installed. 20 to 25 mm of space in front of the heat sink allows a 8mm spacer to work with the spring clip.

Tab width
Thickness of the 33130-MAT-611 "socket"

k2mpw at that ya who dot come place.

3/22/21 rev -