Triumphrat

sweatmachine · 02-09-2008

My bonnie now has Suzuki parts and parts meant for a Harley! How's that for a melting pot? After fitting my new sleek front end and wheels the big stock headlight just looked out of place and stuck out too far in my crazy mind's eye, but with no 'kits' available for a smaller headlight I took matters into my own cheap hands.

I bought a $20 5-3/4" sidemount headlight and 4x 1-5/8" P-clamps for $6.99 a pair, both off ebay. I made headlight brackets out of the P-clamps thanks to inspiration/idea from Vertwerks. He used Kuryaken P-clamps, which look great, but cost like $20+ each and I wanted 4 of them....yeah....no go there. Then, I went to ebay and searched "P clamp" and found the cheap-o special that happened to be 1-5/8 (which works out to 41.275 mm, our forks are 41mm) so I bought them.

I took these $3.50 P-clamps:

Put them in my grandfather's giant vise:

smacked the bejesus out of them with a hammer:

drilled them:

sweatmachine · 02-09-2008

then trimmed/shaped them to make these headlight brackets out of them:

test fit with the headlight:

I took the other pair of P-clamps and made some simple turn signal brackets out of them by opening up the holes and trimming/shaping them:

test fit:

sweatmachine · 02-09-2008

this headlight came with a Blue high beam indicator, but I wanted to install my LED oil pressure and neutral lights, so I marked it to drill it out for the LEDs:

after drilling it, I popped in the LEDs and wired it up. Here's all the wiring in the headlight, you can see the little light that came with it for the blue high beam indicator, and also the LEDs I popped in:

Hey, it works!

sweatmachine · 02-09-2008

and here's what it looks like:

sweatmachine · 02-09-2008

I'll get some daylight pics later, but I'm very pleased with the look so far. The light seems at least as bright as the crappy stock light so no loss there.

For comparison, here's a pic with my old giant 7" stock headlight sticking way out in the breeze:

PaleForce · 02-09-2008

...Rock n' roll.

Simmons · 02-09-2008

The light and bracket set up look great.

What are you going to do with the mess of wires that used to live in the shell of your stock headlight?

sweatmachine · 02-09-2008

I still have to permanently relocate the 10lbs of wire I removed from the stock headlight, but I think I know where it is going. I ran out of electric tape and zip-ties and then realized it was t-minus 10 minutes to buy beer (11:50pm) so I called it quits. I got a lot of it rerouted but there is still more to hide and I need to find a home for my ignition.

I'll have it done tomorrow and do a night time test ride to try out the new headlight. For now, it's miller time!

Cat_Daddy · 02-09-2008

Dude, you might get a doctor to check out that belly button of yours. Looks like you got a bad hernia there....

I'm just saying....

Raindogs · 02-09-2008

[quote=Antique_Engine;940112]Dude, you might get a doctor to check out that belly button of yours. Looks like you got a bad hernia there....

Now I don't care who you are, that's just some funny stuff rot thar.
Sweat, that thing just keeps getting meaner and meaner. Really surprised what a big difference just a headlight makes. Well done!
BTW, what are your plans for that seat? Seem to remember that you were gonna have something custom done? Maybe a 'la Bratstyle?