A DIRT WHEELS FAN WRITES: “I have inherited my father’s two Honda ATC350X’s, one an ’85 and the other is an ’86. He also had a box with some spare parts. In the box was a handful of H6M, QI headlight bulbs. He told me that the 350Xs had a problem blowing headlights. As you probably know, the original voltage regulators were bad allowing the voltage to get too high, thus blowing the standard 35/35W incandescent headlight bulbs. So he had purchased a handful of these new, more powerful H6M QI bulbs. But they never got installed. Well, I installed a pair during the restoration of the ’85 350X. What I don’t understand is how I could screw up installing the headlight bulbs! Align the guide plate with the cutout in the headlight nacelle and reattach the wiring. Yet somehow I have managed to reverse the beams. Low is now high and high is now low! My dad doesn’t have a clue how I did it, either. Boss, is there some “trick” that we are not aware of in installing the more powerful QI light bulbs?” – Crystal and Dennis Ashby, Elkhorn City, KY.

OUR PRO ANSWER: Your letter brings back memories of the ATC350Xs. Yes, the ‘85s had bad voltage regulators. These were replaced by Honda with updated regulators. The ‘86s were not affected I believe. Now to your headlight problem, Crystal, you did nothing wrong. Installing the headlight bulbs is as simple as you stated. The problem is the H6M QI bulbs. Decades ago there was a bad batch of the bulbs where the aligning plate was installed backwards. That means the high beam contact is energized when low beam is switched on. There are three ways to fix these headlight bulbs because you can’t return the bulbs to the store after four decades! First is to de-solder the guide plate and reverse it 180° and re-solder. The second is to grind off the guide point and solder on a new guide point 180° to the original. Both of these choices places the low beam bulb contact directly over the low beam contact of the light bulb socket. The third and the easiest are to simply connect the White low beam power wires to the Blue high beam power wires and the Blue to the White. Now the low beams will illuminate with the handlebar switch in the low beam position and the same goes for the high beam.

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