Access to the inner headlamp and headlight 'bucket' areas is sometimes done by removing the fairing glass, a pricey piece that almost always NEED NOT be removed from its mounting in the rubber-plastic outer trim. Removing this outer glass usually requires NON-metallic tools to avoid chipping/cracking, unless one is very careful, and removal of the glass is usually a waste of time, and the potential for glass breakage always exists. Removal of the outer glass is warranted for such as traveling up a serious gravel/rocky road having big trucks spraying you with rocks...such as the Haul Road in Alaska (where you will have a polycarbonate plastic lens, instead of the factory pricey glass lens here).

The myth of having to remove this outer glass seems to have been perpetuated in some aftermarket literature.

To gain access to such as the inner fairing screws, the inner headlamp lens and its chrome ring, lamp, and inner parts of the headlight bucket, simply do the following:

1. At each of the four outer corners of the black tunnel that BMW calls a 'Light Shaft', will be found a small phillips-type screw. This screw is between the glass and the tunnel material, and one sometimes need to pull back the tunnel material a small amount to see the screw clearly. Simply UNscrew each of the 4 screws. You can now very easily slide out the entire black tunnel, which removes intact with the glass! This all should take no more than a minute or two at the most. Place the tunnel with the outer glass intact, in a safe place. You will want to clean the inside of the glass with some sort of glass cleaner before reassembly. Note: Some versions did not use phillips screws, but the process is exactly the same.

2. With the tunnel assembly removed, access is now very easy to the inner bucket outer ring/glass and other innards. Use one or both hands and rotate the inner bucket forward part upwards, as you face from the front. Rotate just enough to gain reasonable access to the phillips screw at the bottom-center of the headlight chrome rim. Unscrew that A FEW turns.

3. Lift up and outward the chrome rim starting at that screw area (the bottom lower edge), and it will lift out, and can be unhooked (lifted slightly) from the top. You can now unplug the headlamp, and all is in front of you as needed. Every few years you might want to remove the lamp, it has a wire- spring clip holding it in place, to allow cleaning of the INside of the headlight lens and the inner reflector surface. Use only a mild cleaner and soft wipe material, and remove all residues/streaking. When replacing the lamp, clean its own glass envelope with alcohol, and do NOT afterwards touch the quartz glass of this lamp....finger oils on very hot quartz glass will tend to cause problems over time.

4. It is a good idea, with the tunnel removed, to check all the small hex-head screws that fasten the fairing, to be sure they are reasonably tight. I suggest rotating the fuses in their clips to ensure a good connection, and using #1 eyeball to take a good look around for potential problems.

5. When you are done with whatever you were doing, replace things in the same manner and position in which you removed them, and do not overtighten any of the phillips screws.

6. The headlamp aiming point can be adjusted at night to the correct angle by placing your hands on the bucket on the inner-side of the fairing. The headlight bucket is mounted on rubber pads, and even with its very large side nuts tight (you might want to check that before replacing the tunnel), you can move it for proper aiming. Almost all of you will simply put the Low Beam where you like it. For those who want to do things 'by the book', here is the official information on aiming:
   
   Position the motorcycle on a flat area, perhaps your garage floor. With you sitting on the motorcycle, or otherwise a normal loading, and any suspension adjustments at your normal setting, and the motorcycle NOT on the center- stand, and the headlight lens 5 metres from the garage wall in front of it, have someone make a mark on that far garage wall at the same height that the ground-to-center of the headlight glass lens is. Make a second mark on the wall 5 cm below the first mark. With the low beam on, align the headlight metal shell bucket so that the boundary of the light is on the lower mark, and the light rises to the right to the upper mark, and then falls off.

 Snowbum

http://bmwmotorcycletech.info