TwoStars

This forum has provided some great guidance so I thought I give an update. I dismantled the running lights and was able to remove the fairing with the light bar in place. Cleaned all 5 connectors and blew them out with an air hose (best to use eye protection for this part). Greased them and stabilized the connections using SEAKING’s zip tie trick. It took some practice but had it down by the 5th connection. The audio is back and sounds great – a successful procedure. With the fairing off, I figured it was time to remove the buggered bolts holding the light bar (that’s what started this thread). An auto mechanic friend of mine suggested I use a slightly oversized torx bit and pound it in to the rounded 5 mm allen head of the bolt, making sure it was fully seated. This worked like a charm for one of the bolts, though it fought me the whole way out. I couldn’t get a good hold on the second bolt so drilled off the head, removed the light bar and spacer and used vice-grips to remove the remaining bolt. Following up on a comment by MidnightSpook that there's something about these two bolts that give people problems. I've got an idea. Both bolts pass through what appears to be the headlight frame before hitting the threaded aluminum block. If the holes aren't perfectly lined up (neither of mine were) they put lateral pressure on the bolt and the threads. I haven't bought the replacement bolts yet but plan to expand the holes in the headlight frame and run a tap through the threads to clean them up a bit before re-installing the light bar. Hopefully I'll be back on the road, with tunes, in a day or so. Thanks everyone.

I did part of that ride when I went up to New Hampshire from Maryland a few years back. I loved the Delaware Water Gap and Hudson river valley. Orbie, you mentioned that 9W was depressing. I crossed the Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge over the Hudson at sun rise - spectacular. I went up Rt 9 on the east side of the river up to 23 and into Massachusetts, mostly farmland - very nice. I caught some rain in the White Mountains but who cares, the scenery was awesome. Need to do it again.

Thought I'd ask a few questions before heading blindly into taking the running lights apart. To briefly re-cap I need to remove the fairing to stabilize my audio connection but the two bolts securing the light bar are buggered. I think I can remove the fairing if I dismantle the lights (tell me if I'm wrong). It's not obvious how to proceed. I didn't install these lights so have no diagrams or instructions. You guys are my manual. There is an 8 mm bolt that binds a clamp that holds the directionals. Above that is a "collar" that looks like it could accommodate a 22 mm wrench (that's a guess) but it's not clear what that does. Can I remove the top running light without messing with the directionals? I understand that alignment can be rather tedious, but that's OK if I can get the fairing removed. Ever get the feeling we take one step forward and three steps back? Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the suggestions. The first thing I did was put everything back together and went out riding. After all it's only the audio. The easy out broke off at the bottom of the hole so I can still get a bit in there. Further drilling will be problematic. I like Midnightventure's center punch idea. I was thinking of using an impact screw driver to add a bit of torque but need to find the right bit. I'll need room to work so will follow BuddyRich's suggestion of taking apart the running lights and removing the outer fairing. All in good time. Thanks again.

Bought my ’08 RSV back in January. Runs great but has a few minor problems I’ve been getting to slowly. This weekend was cleaning and greasing the electrical connectors in the fairing. The audio has been cutting out intermittently – a problem well documented on this forum. I split the fairing OK but when I went to remove the light bar so I could remove the front portion of the fairing, saw that both 5 mm hex screws were completely rounded. Tried drilling one and using an extractor but broke it off (that’s never happened before:depressed:). I might be able to remove the fairing if I disassemble the running lights but that seems to be getting me further down that black hole I’m trying to avoid. The frustrating part – I can see the connectors I want to clean, just can’t get to them – all because of a couple buggered hex screws. Suggestions? It’s too early to drink.

I've been meaning to ask you guys about this. The audio system on my '08 RSV powers up sporadically. There's no rhyme or reason - sometimes it powers up sometimes it doesn't. Once it's on, all functions work great. Are there known connector problems at play here?