1974 XS/TX650 rebuild

[th62]

Some work on the rear end: The guard was badly dented and had a couple of cracks running out from the tail light fixing holes. I cut the lip from the periphery off, removed some dents as best I could and removed the bracing underneath at the rear end of the guard. The cracks I removed by drilling a bloody great hole, around 48mm, in the mounting area. This left a bit of problem on how to mount the new tail light. The solution was to insert a big grommet in the hole with a 38mm ID hole, next I spun up an aluminium bush to fit inside the grommet with a 50mm lip to compress the grommet. The tail light base was fashioned from 3mm steel with a 10mm nut welded in the middle. Over that I welded a bit of 30mm square tube and welded a flat plate on the other end the same shape as the tail light. Next I mounted the bracket on the mill and drilled some lightning holes. A 10mm fixing bolt was drilled through for cabling access to the light. I was worried about the tail light twisting in the grommet there being just one bolt securing it, but when done up, it proved to be solid as. Off to buy some paint this afternoon, so tomorrow I'll prep everything for paint and lay down some gloss black.