On my old Honda, I replaced the forward and rear retroreflectors with a pair of amber and a pair of red LED marker lights. I also added an auxiliary brake light, consisting of an LED strip mounted on the back of the grab rail.
I intend to add similar lighting to Diana (my lovely X400i) but I'd rather it look a little more sleek and have a more "designed-in" feel. To that end, I've acquired some 3.4" Eagle Eye led lights in red and amber, and a neat little LED marker light that is incredibly bright to serve as the aux brake light.
I'd like to mount it to the grab rail so that it will be high enough to be seen, but there's really no way to mount it directly to the bike, so I have hit upon the solution of making a small bracket to add to the grab rail, on which the light will be mounted.
This was the process I went through:
I started with some oak lumber, about 2" x 2.5". I cut a few small pieces of maple that is about 5/8" square, so that it would form a shape into which small aluminium strips could be pressed into the shape of the bracket.
After a bit of fiddling to get everything square and centered, the maple bits were added to the oak ones, and voila! The press forms for the bracket. I had some 1" x 4" pieces of 0.040" aluminium, and they form the bracket.
It takes a bit of fiddling to center the aluminium strip over the center of the form to put it into a vise to press the forms together with the strip in between.
I put the whole thing into the vise, and tighten it up as much as I can. I leave it for about 10 minutes, so that the aluminium gets stable in the form. This is what it looks like when you take it out of the vise:
Once the strip is pressed into shape, it's just a matter of using the grinder and a Dremel to shape it to fit the mount housing for the light. I've included a bit of tape measure so everyone can see the scale of this thing.
Trimmed up and drilled for the mounting holes for the bracket. I'm debating whether or not I am going to use pop rivets or a nut and bolt to attach the mount housing to the bracket.
If you look closely, you can see that the holes through which the self-tapping screws are going to attach the bracket to the grab rail, have not been drilled yet. That's because I have not yet acquired the exact drill bit I need. The screws I have for this have a 2.3mm shank, and I want a drill bit exactly the same diameter, and I haven't yet gotten that specific bit.
This coming week, my workplace is closed for the holiday, and so I'll have enough time (I hope) to add in the Auxiliary Lighting. I'll have to remove some plastics, and that worries me since there's no really good tutorial for that, and I don't think I am up to making one.
I'll keep everyone posted on the progress in this thread!
