Ironing out the niggling details....

In some regards, restoring a bike back to spec is easy.   By easy, I mean having definite guidelines and photographic references to follow.  Hard work?  Absolutely.  Once you have all the right parts however, it can be similar to building a life sized Airfix kit.

Building a custom bike or something from random parts can be much more challenging; Often the smallest victories yield the greatest rewards.

My latest victory was in the form of a tail light.  As trivial as it may sound, I could not find the right tail light/brake light for this build.  This had actually been driving me to distraction for the better part of two years.

I played around with a variety of different styles, finally settling on an original English made Sparto piece that I fabricated a lens for.

Close, but not quite.

It looked good and was very, very close to being right.  It just wan't right enough.

Back to the drawing board.

My criteria was fairly straightforward.  I wanted something that looked period, flowed with the bike and was functional.  I also wanted something unique and lighter than the Sparto unit.   To make life harder, I didn't want a repop item from China or India.  There is a cheapness to these items that always seems to let the side down.

Cruising around on Ebay, I spotted something a little bit different.  It was an NOS Lucas light I had never seen before, a model VT31.  There wasn't much online about it, just that it was used on bicycles and mopeds primarily.  The asking price was low, so I took a chance.

Rather than fabricate a backing plate, I decided to modify something I already had.

The plate is most certainly a DIY item, I have no idea what the off-set drilled holes were for.

The first step was to weld some plate on the back to cover the holes.  I then welded some steel washers into the holes and removed the plate on the back.  Next, I lined up the light in order to drill the mounting holes.

Then a little filler and a bit of paint.

Front 

Side view

I am really happy with the way that this turned out.  It certainly checks all the boxes for me with the added bonus of having lots of character.  Although hard to see in the photos, the light is actually adjustable so I can fine tune when the rear mudguard is in place.

Until next time....