With the long awaited difficult jobs to do I trial fitted the headlight that I bought at Normous Newark auto jumble some 9 months or so ago. It’s great because it’s the right size and the bowl is huge and ideal for hiding all the wires and connectors in. It was a bit of a faf getting the brackets to fit but I got there in the end and am rather pleased with the results. It’s taken three years but for the first time it has a face and looks like a motorcycle. The cool thing is that it looks just like I had imagined it 3 years ago. To my eye at least it sits right and it feels pretty good. I was worried that the tank might get in the way of my stomach but diabetes has shrunk that a fair bit in recent years so that’s a bonus 🙂
Sorry about the photo, it’s in my store room at the moment as I have 6 bikes in the workshop and I would have had to move all of them to get the T300 in to a more photogenic situation.
I now have to decide whether to fit indicators or not. The wiring is in place for them and I have tested it all but I am struggling to find some that I like on there. Mounting them is easy enough – u shaped affairs at the front that mount to the headlamp mounts, similar at the back mounting to the number plate mount I made in the last exciting episode. I shall have more of a ponder on that. I want them fairly discrete but not so small that they look silly. Tricky.
In the mean time I have a rather annoying oil leak to deal with. I thought it was coming from the cam cover but it is still leaking and as the bike hasn’t been run for a year or more I can’t imagine there is any left in the cam chamber. I shall have to look further in to that, I can’t stand leaky bikes and anyway the MoT man is bound to pick it up and resort to violence.
A minor job had to be done to allow progress on the wiring – I had a flasher relay and an engine control relay that had to be fitted somewhere. As the wiring came out near the front I thought behind the headlight would be a good place for them so I made up a small bracket to fit them out of sight and where they should be fairly well protected from the weather. It’s just a simple piece of galvanised steel that I had left over from the back of a washing machine – most of the rest of it forms various parts for the budget chopper build I recently completed. I have to modify it very slightly as the ignition lock just catches the corner of it on full left lock.
Two of the larger connectors will live outside of the headlight bowl, the connectors will be covered with rubber boots, which I have yet to source, the remaining connectors and wiring will live inside the headlamp bowl with space to spare.
Now we come to the next problem, I had been working on the assumption that my headlight had a side light fitted, I was convinced I had checked that little point when I bought the bloody thing. Sadly I am very much mistaken so now I have to figure out how to make an external side light that looks ok. It’s not going to be easy as there are not many convenient mounting points and I don’t want anything that spoils the lines. I might make something that fits to the front mudguard, which is another item I haven’t sourced yet! Another thought is to use LED strips that can be cut to length and run down the fork tubes or something. I will sort the rest of the wring first and attend to some other bits, it’s not a show stopper but it is something I want to do right.
Another thing I had forgotten all about was the fuel tap. The original one had failed and caused a massive problem with the crankcase filling with petrol. Triumph being Triumph had used a different sized tap to every other manufacturer in the world so something that is usually very easy to fix at under 20 quid becomes a massive and expensive pain in the arse. I think that’s why it got left a couple of years ago when I first encountered the obstacle.
I am going to make my own. I like the old fashioned style of tap I used on the chopper so I will make an adapter and use a similar tap – it looks good and will work well. It also gives me the chance to do a bit more fabrication, which is always a bonus. Just got to check it clears the custom made side panels before I commit to it, if it doesn’t I will come up with another, even more cunning plan.
Article provided by David Powell of Boston Bike Bits.
