One of the nit-picky things that I identified early on about the bike was the way a non-stock headlight was unceremoniously stuck onto the back of a stock headlight bulk with what appeared to be caulk.
After talking to a local shop owner that has owned 3 of these bikes over the years he informed me that this was not an uncommon practice, as the price of the OEM replacement bulbs went north of $50 and the cost of a halogen bulb with the matching plug was only $7. Still I didn’t want to accept that I would have to glue a light bulb in whenever I needed to change one. Check out what I came up with in the video below.
You can see in the detail picture below that the washers, once the washer with the 1” inside diameter is JB Welded onto the headlight bucket, will clamp the headlight bulb into the headlight assembly. You can also see that the bolts are too long and will have to be ground down (more on that in a bit).
The smaller washer is a 7/8" inside diameter.
Just a small bead of JB Weld is all that is needed. I took a file to the area where the JB Weld was going to be applied.
After I had the washer positioned where I wanted it, JB Weld’s instructions recommend that you let it cure for 24 hours so that is what I did.
The next day I took the assembly to a friend’s garage to grind down the bolts and do a final assembly. A growler of Ale Asylum’s “Madtown Nutbrown” was along for the ride as well!
When I was grinding down the bolts I put the head in a vise grip and took it to the bench grinder. The first one didn’t do so hot!
The rest turned out okay, but I think I might go with some socket head cap screws instead that are bought at the right length in the long run. The final assembly looks like this.
All in all I am pretty happy with the progress on the headlight, there is till the issue of the rust on the inside of the headlight assembly, that might be the next project so I can close the chapter on the headlight altogether.
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