Removing 1 Headlight... Which One?

[Brett Slagle]

I bought an M1000 recently that I'm going to run for the next four years and am spending some time this summer making the stock hood a vented and lighter weight piece of equipment. I'm on a poor kid budget, so I'm building everything myself. I'm going to pull one of headlights to loose some weight. I ride in the dark all the time, so keeping a light on my sled is needed. I typically run a lead dog helmet light as well, so I figured I could drop one of the two lights and be fine. Please don't tell me to ditch both lights, I need at least one light for when a family member or friend needs to run my sled. Also, please don't tell me to buy an LED/aftermarket light, I'm on a poor kid budget! Two questions:

1. Which light do you think I should drop... Left (clutch side) or Right (exhaust side)? My initial thought is left because that side of the sled is heavier with clutches and diamond drive... thoughts? All stock exhaust this season, maybe aftermarket exhaust down the line.

2. Electrically, can I just cut the wires to the light I am removing and tie off properly? Will that cause any issues? I will still be pulling power to run the other light.

I'm going to convert the empty light hole into a vent.

Thanks!

Brett

 

[tchriste]

I removed one headlight last year and use the opening as a vent. I did cut the wires and terminate them...no issues. Can't say I got too technical about which one to remove, bought the BDX covers...I took one, buddy got the other.

 

[backcountryislife]

I leave the can side open. Clutch side open will drop snow on clutches in a hard carve.

 

[Mjunkie]

You shouldn't have to cut the wire, you can simply unplug it from the bulb and zip tie the wire to something under the hood to keep from melting. As far as which light to ditch, they don't weigh very much so as far as trying to decide which side based on where you need to loose the weight i doubt it will make a difference you could ever notice. I'd take the clutch side out though just to get more venting on that side where it "might" reach the clutches. If you take out all the under hood sound dampening cloth (if there is any to begin with on your sled) along with the metal clips that hold it in, and make your own intake duct out of dryer vent (which is what I did), or something similar you can loose a little more (unless you're already planning or have already done that).

If you're on a poor kids' budget, the best thing you can do to take weight off the machine is take some off yourself (if you're similar to my build ). And besides you can save some money eating less and put more into the sled

 

[Hardass]

WHAT YEAR SLED ?Do you ride at night? take it all off.

 

[Brett Slagle]

I leave the can side open. Clutch side open will drop snow on clutches in a hard carve.

Good point, but the same could be said for any vent on the clutch side, right? All clutch side vents I build will get prefilter material, so if I did remove that side of the light, it would get prefilter too... Does your vent have prefilter on it?

 

[Brett Slagle]

You shouldn't have to cut the wire, you can simply unplug it from the bulb and zip tie the wire to something under the hood to keep from melting. As far as which light to ditch, they don't weigh very much so as far as trying to decide which side based on where you need to loose the weight i doubt it will make a difference you could ever notice. I'd take the clutch side out though just to get more venting on that side where it "might" reach the clutches. If you take out all the under hood sound dampening cloth (if there is any to begin with on your sled) along with the metal clips that hold it in, and make your own intake duct out of dryer vent (which is what I did), or something similar you can loose a little more (unless you're already planning or have already done that).

If you're on a poor kids' budget, the best thing you can do to take weight off the machine is take some off yourself (if you're similar to my build ). And besides you can save some money eating less and put more into the sled

Good point on the unplug... I'll just do that. All the sound dampening cloth and metal clips are out. Going to do a duct work mod too. I am 6'3" and 190 lbs. Hit the gym every day for the sole purpose of snowmobiling! I guess mostly snowmobiling, I live in a small beach community in Los Angeles, so there is also some beach bod motivation!

 

[Brett Slagle]

WHAT YEAR SLED ?Do you ride at night? take it all off.

2009. Need at least one light, ride at night all the time. Strictly ride out of my cabin in Northern, CA. Always get there super later on Friday (fly from Los Angeles and then drive for two hours). Once I'm there I pretty much ride all day on Saturday, then a Saturday night ride, and then most of the day Sunday. Do this nearly all winter weekends.

 

[backcountryislife]

Good point, but the same could be said for any vent on the clutch side, right? All clutch side vents I build will get prefilter material, so if I did remove that side of the light, it would get prefilter too... Does your vent have prefilter on it?

I usually just leave both open.... way more airflow than a vent will allow.

I threw the other side in here because I was getting snow in the intake.


This is what I run now... it's much warmer under hood than with the hole truly open.

 

[Brett Slagle]

Thanks Kaleb. The headlight opening is huge, some real possibilities there for creating airflow and keeping motor compartment temps down! I think I'm going to take out the left side light and vent it. Obviously more airflow would be created if I left it all open, but I want to be able to run it in any and all conditions without changing anything, so that sort of forces me to build a vent for it. Maybe I'll figure something out to make the vent easily removable. If I did that, I could just pop it off when I'm riding in more setup snow conditions... something to think about over the next month.

 

[backcountryislife]

The new BDX "vented" headlight setup is much better than the old one... WAY more venting.


If you wanted to have the option, that's the way I'd go. I used to tell people not to do the BDX one because it didn't vent enough, but I ordered a set for a guy & saw that they had changed it recently.


Nice simple install/ removal.

I wouldn't cut the wires btw... asking for a short, and if you just zip tie them up, they'll never be an issue. (and they're there for a future sale if needed)

 

[LAMBOFGOD]

The new BDX "vented" headlight setup is much better than the old one... WAY more venting.


If you wanted to have the option, that's the way I'd go. I used to tell people not to do the BDX one because it didn't vent enough, but I ordered a set for a guy & saw that they had changed it recently.


Nice simple install/ removal.

I wouldn't cut the wires btw... asking for a short, and if you just zip tie them up, they'll never be an issue. (and they're there for a future sale if needed)

agreed dont cut the wires. what you can do is run your sled on high beam all the time, take the highbeam side from the one your taking off and put it in the low beam hole on the light you left. then you get the same amount of light coming out of one headlight. i was gonna do it to mine, but i didnt think about it till i sealed it all up with zap straps, and i wasnt about to do it again.
i made my own cover for the headlight outta super this aluminum. drilled a bunch of holes in it and some frog skins over.

pic is obviously before i drilled the holes.

 

[Brett Slagle]

what you can do is run your sled on high beam all the time, take the highbeam side from the one your taking off and put it in the low beam hole on the light you left. then you get the same amount of light coming out of one headlight.

GREAT IDEA! Anybody ever done this? No issue burning up the low beam light with too much voltage... do the high beams get more juice than the low beams?

 

[backcountryislife]

GREAT IDEA! Anybody ever done this? No issue burning up the low beam light with too much voltage... do the high beams get more juice than the low beams?

No, the difference is just like putting a 40 watt bulb in a light socket vs a 60 watt... same kind of deal.


Great idea LOG!!!

 

[LAMBOFGOD]

GREAT IDEA! Anybody ever done this? No issue burning up the low beam light with too much voltage... do the high beams get more juice than the low beams?

if you take the whole light assembly from the side you take out, the sled wouldnt even know the difference both the high beam bulbs/assemblies are in the same housing. only way your gonna run into trouble would be if you turned the low beams on, then there wouldnt be any bulbs hooked up so your gonna be getting more juice to things like the hand warmers, gauge, ecu, etc.
as long as you run on high beam all the time it would be no different then stock.

 

[65pony123]

leaving a headlight

so on my 06 m7 could i take one headlight put both high beams in one side unplug both low beams zip tie them up and no issues?

 

[m-fire8]

Homemade with trampoline and led bars on low beam and fog lights on high beam wired together