Rear Light Refurbishment

 The original rear light mounting has been comprehensively butchered by a previous owner to fit a non-standard Triumph pattern rear light. The light fitting itself is broken so I needed to replace that and thought I would try and get it back to looking original. A new pattern light unit was available from Hitchcock's.

The first picture shows the "wrong" rear light fitting and the next couple after I'd stripped the mounting down and tried to batter it into something resembling a flat piece of metal. You can see where the top part of the mounting plate has been hacked off.

The plan of attack was to fashion a new piece of metal to restore the original profile and then epoxy that to the original (ideally I'd weld it but I figure that the light is going to bolt through both plates and hold it together anyway, so saving some expense.) If this doesn't work, longer term I'll fashion a complete new mounting plate, as this has actually been a relatively easy repair.

I cut two pieces of plywood and the steel to the angled profile of the top of the plate and sandwiched the steel between the ply in the vice, with about 5mm protruding. Then I gently hammered over the edge to form the lip. Amazingly it followed the profile really nicely  - I was expecting it to buckle a bit at the angle.

I cut the "bad" steel back and formed a bit of a rebate in the lip so that the existing pieces sat under the new, then I epoxied it all together, clamping it while the epoxy set. 

I'm pretty pleased with the end result for a couple of quid's worth of steel and a couple of hours. It still needs a bit of fettling before painting but will do the job nicely.

Frame Repainting

I've been putting off doing the frame because I knew it would be a horrible, dirty job stripping the old paint off. But I had a pretty free day today; it was sunny and there was no-one home to disturb with the power drill going for a while, so I decided to go for it today. I was right - it was a horrible, dirty job. But a couple of hours and 2 rust stripping wheels had it all removed.

The new bushes have now been pressed into the swinging arm, so that was back and I had already stripped that before it went to be worked on. 

 

Next job was to get a couple of coats of red lead primer brushed on ready for the enamel. I love days like today - a few hours work has taken me from grimy frame to nicely prepped and ready for the top coat on the next free day.