1 Mounting floodlights on LFB Fri May 22, 2015 10:31 pm
Dai
Life time member
I had a PM asking how I'd mounted the additional lights on LFB; as my avatar is well out of date and I've also changed the standard K100 headlight for a 7" round Cibie, I thought it might just be of interest to someone else too.
The headlamp shell I chose is a replica Honda CB900F type. It's 190mm across at the widest point and is the biggest that will fit in the fairing opening and still allow a small amount of room for adjustment. The reflector it came with was immediately dispatched to the bin because even a cursory visual inspection showed that the beam pattern was going to be utterly useless, so a brand-new Cibie was fitted instead. I mounted the shell from the back of the fairing bracket. There's a lot of trial-and-error in the shape of those brackets which is why they're bolted to the fairing spider rather than welded to it. The odd wave is caused by the need to avoid the lower yoke.
I used 3mm plastic card to form the new headlight opening - an A4-size sheet is just wide enough and no more. Cutting out the 195mm circular opening was fairly easy; I marked it out with a pair of compasses fitted with a scribe rather than a pencil and then patiently followed up with a Stanley knife. I then reinforced the edges with additional 3mm plastic card. It's held in place with three aluminium brackets screwed into the original headlight mounting holes and backed with rubber to provide seating pressure. I did consider using aluminium sheet for this job but the headlight opening has a slight curve at the top. Plastic card will take it up but you could spend hours trying to get ally to fit precisely. The odd shape at the top corners is caused by needing to fit around the RS screen and the bits at the bottom corners are the backs of two 1.5w Cree marker lights. Yes, one did get off position when the hole was being drilled - dammit.
Finding a mounting point for the spotlights was reasonably trivial. I used the horn mounts and moved the horns to the bottom fairing mounting. I then simply stuck a pencil through the captive nuts to mark the fairing in the right place. I used a pair of naked K100 headlamp rubbers to provide anti-vibration mounts (these needed a 20mm hole in the fairing) and pushed a tight-fitting M8 I/D tube through the rubber to butt up against the horn captive nut. Right-angle brackets were then fabricated to suit the width of the spotlights (5"). The positioning of these holes can be seen in the pic above too.
Figuring out the auxlight mountings was a bit more complex. There were a couple of things in play here; I wanted to be able to remove the fairing without dismounting the auxlights each time and I wanted to use 5.75" headlights. This meant that the auxlights had to be parallel with the original headlight to get the narrowest mounting point (define 'narrow'... ). The only available point to take the weight was the bottom of the fairing spider, so I welded in a piece of 3mm flat bar as far forward as possible. Despite that, the lights bar still had to be dropped down by 60mm and offset forward to clear the fairing.
The width of the lights bar was dictated by the width of the fairing at that point. It's 14mm tube with 1.5mm wall thickness. I plugged both ends and threaded them to M8 so that I could change the type of auxlight and only have to make new brackets to suit. Finally, to be able to remove the fairing with the lights bar in place I cut slots in the chin piece.
Truthfully, they really aren't as ugly as they look in that picture! All the bulbs are Osram Nightbreakers.
Currently LFB is off the road for a 70,000 mile service and a complete new wiring loom - you can see the tails hanging off the bench in the first picture. Those Eccentrics on the run to Newgrange when Bill was here have seen the complete setup. 88KE commented that the marker lights were very effective. I'm childish - I take great delight in getting my own back on the buggers coming the other way who won't dip their headlights. The first time I did that I got a bit of a shock: even with his lights on full beam I could still see by him!!!
The headlamp shell I chose is a replica Honda CB900F type. It's 190mm across at the widest point and is the biggest that will fit in the fairing opening and still allow a small amount of room for adjustment. The reflector it came with was immediately dispatched to the bin because even a cursory visual inspection showed that the beam pattern was going to be utterly useless, so a brand-new Cibie was fitted instead. I mounted the shell from the back of the fairing bracket. There's a lot of trial-and-error in the shape of those brackets which is why they're bolted to the fairing spider rather than welded to it. The odd wave is caused by the need to avoid the lower yoke.
I used 3mm plastic card to form the new headlight opening - an A4-size sheet is just wide enough and no more. Cutting out the 195mm circular opening was fairly easy; I marked it out with a pair of compasses fitted with a scribe rather than a pencil and then patiently followed up with a Stanley knife. I then reinforced the edges with additional 3mm plastic card. It's held in place with three aluminium brackets screwed into the original headlight mounting holes and backed with rubber to provide seating pressure. I did consider using aluminium sheet for this job but the headlight opening has a slight curve at the top. Plastic card will take it up but you could spend hours trying to get ally to fit precisely. The odd shape at the top corners is caused by needing to fit around the RS screen and the bits at the bottom corners are the backs of two 1.5w Cree marker lights. Yes, one did get off position when the hole was being drilled - dammit.
Finding a mounting point for the spotlights was reasonably trivial. I used the horn mounts and moved the horns to the bottom fairing mounting. I then simply stuck a pencil through the captive nuts to mark the fairing in the right place. I used a pair of naked K100 headlamp rubbers to provide anti-vibration mounts (these needed a 20mm hole in the fairing) and pushed a tight-fitting M8 I/D tube through the rubber to butt up against the horn captive nut. Right-angle brackets were then fabricated to suit the width of the spotlights (5"). The positioning of these holes can be seen in the pic above too.
Figuring out the auxlight mountings was a bit more complex. There were a couple of things in play here; I wanted to be able to remove the fairing without dismounting the auxlights each time and I wanted to use 5.75" headlights. This meant that the auxlights had to be parallel with the original headlight to get the narrowest mounting point (define 'narrow'... ). The only available point to take the weight was the bottom of the fairing spider, so I welded in a piece of 3mm flat bar as far forward as possible. Despite that, the lights bar still had to be dropped down by 60mm and offset forward to clear the fairing.
The width of the lights bar was dictated by the width of the fairing at that point. It's 14mm tube with 1.5mm wall thickness. I plugged both ends and threaded them to M8 so that I could change the type of auxlight and only have to make new brackets to suit. Finally, to be able to remove the fairing with the lights bar in place I cut slots in the chin piece.
Truthfully, they really aren't as ugly as they look in that picture! All the bulbs are Osram Nightbreakers.
Currently LFB is off the road for a 70,000 mile service and a complete new wiring loom - you can see the tails hanging off the bench in the first picture. Those Eccentrics on the run to Newgrange when Bill was here have seen the complete setup. 88KE commented that the marker lights were very effective. I'm childish - I take great delight in getting my own back on the buggers coming the other way who won't dip their headlights. The first time I did that I got a bit of a shock: even with his lights on full beam I could still see by him!!!
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1983 K100 naked upgraded to K100LT spec after spending time as an RS and an RT
1987 K100RT
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2020 Royal Enfield Bullet 500