![]() How To Install Stainless Steel Brake Lines. Anytime you’re doing a brake job, it’s recommended that you swap out more than the brake pads. Often times the rotors. Making Up Cables: by Max Lambky 4/1/11 A time will come in your restoration project when cables, i.e., brake, clutch, throttle. How to install brake lights on a classic bike • Matchless Clueless. Introduction to installing brake lights. Hand signalling. My Matchless G3. LS left the factory back in 1. However, on today’s busy roads this really isn’t such a sensible arrangement any more. Hand signals might have been sufficient 6. I think the majority of modern car drivers would just think you’d gone mad if you started waving your arm up and down as per the “I’m slowing down or stopping” hand signals specified in the Highway Code! I’d much prefer to keep my hands firmly on the bars and therefore needed to fit some brake lights instead. Back in India where I bought the bike, it seemed to be viewed as an unnecessary extravagance to have any working lights at all fitted to your vehicle, let alone going to the hassle of installing brake lights where the manufacturer had not seen fit too! But as the bike had to be rewired anyway, it seemed an ideal opportunity to get a brake light fitted. Simple rear brake lights switches were plentiful as they’re fitted to most of the Royal Enfield Bullets that plod about the place, and the modification to the rear lamp unit was straightforward. Fitting a front brake activated stop light was a little more difficult to retrofit, but as the rear brake was the only one with much stopping power on my old Matchless at the time, this wasn’t really an issue. Here in Hong Kong though things are a little different as it’s compulsory to have brake lights which function when either the front or rear brake is applied. So another wiring modification was required to add a switch to the front brake lever before the bike could go for its pre- registration examination. In the end, like so many things, it’s easy when you know how and so that is what this guide is all about – how to upgrade your classic motorcycle to have brake lights that work when either brake is applied. The article covers the following topics: The law concerning rear lights in the UKBefore I get down to the practicalities of the switches and wiring, I thought it worth finding out what the law in the UK says regarding fitment of brake lights to classic bikes back in the UK. After a quick search on the web, this is what I found…The regulations in the UK (“The Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations 1. Schedule 1. 2) specify that: “Every stop lamp fitted to… a solo motor bicycle or a motor bicycle combination first used on or after 1st April 1.
The “Motorcycle and Side car Testers Manual” covers the MOT requirements for motorbike brake lights in Section 1. It states: “Exemptions: For this test if a stop lamp is fitted, it must meet the requirements of this inspection, but need not be fitted to a machine which: a. January 1. 93. 6, orc. April 1. 98. 6 and which has an engine capacity of less than 5. Machines first used before 1st April 1. So my conclusions from these two documents are as follows: – Motorbikes first used before January 1. Bikes first used before April 1. Bikes first used after April 1. Therefore my 1. 95. Matchless must have a brake light fitted even though it didn’t have one when it left the factory, but it only needs to operate from one or other of the brake controls (i. It need not necessarily be connected to both braking systems. So my Indian setup (with only a rear brake light) would also be fine for the UK, but the Hong Kong requirements (for both front and rear brake lights) are more stringent. So, how did I go about ‘upgrading’ my old bike to meet these requirements? Read on to Page 2 to find out…Installing a rear brake light. Let’s start with the relatively simple task of fitting a brake light which operates upon application of the rear brake. This is quite straightforward and not at all expensive, and most importantly will be enough to get your bike through this section of a MOT in the UK. Rear brake switch. Royal Enfield type rear brake light switch. First, you’ll need to buy a switch that can be fitted to the rear brake pedal and which will illuminate the bright rear light filament when the brake is activated. These are readily available from lot’s of different sources such as Jampot Spares, Paul Goff’s website, or AMC Classic Spares to name but a few. ![]() I picked up a couple of Royal Enfield switches whilst I was living in India – they’re fairly crude but do the job (Hitchcock’s Motorcycles sell them back in the UK). The rear brake switch. These switches have a built- in clamp arrangement which is easily fitted to the frame of your bike next to the rear brake lever, down by the side of the rear wheel. A picture says a thousand words so hopefully the photo on the left should give you the idea! The switch connects to the brake lever using a long spring which means that exact positioning is not critical so long as the switch is off when the brake pedal is released and activates when the pedal is pressed. Experiment with a few positions and angles to see which works best. Brake light bulbs. Next, you’ll need to decide how to install the additional bulb (or change from a single to double filament bulb) in order to have both tail and stop lights. This is going to depend largely on what type of brake light unit your bike has as this will determine what bulb(s) you can fit inside. I’m working on the assumption that you won’t want to change how the bike looks by replacing the light unit itself. Let’s look at swapping from a single to twin filament bulb to start with. Most rear light bulbs have a 1. If they just have the one filament they’re probably a BA1. BA” means bayonet, “1. The diagram below shows all the different types of single and dual filament BA1. The various 1. 5mm bayonet bulb fittings. Pay particular attention to the position of the pins, both when the bulb is viewed from below and also from the side. The ‘standard’ layout is for the pins to be directly opposite each other when viewed from the bottom, but in some cases (type BAZ1. Looking from the side of the bulb, the pins are normally both at the same height, but can also be offset so that one is higher up than the other (types BAY1. BAZ1. 5d). The other thing to check is the length of the pins as some bulb types have one which is longer than the other (type BAX1. It’s not easy to remember which type is which, hence why the above diagram is so useful – click here to download a copy of the full bulb diagram sheet which also shows various other common bulb types. The reason for all of these slightly different pin configurations with bayonet- fit bulbs is to make sure that you install the bulb the right way around so that the correct filament is connected to the relevant circuit. Most twin filament bulbs have two different brightnesses – a low wattage (typically 5. W) filament for the tail lamp and a higher wattage (typically 2. W) filament for the brighter stop lamp. If you put it in the wrong way round you’d end up with very bright tail lights but stop lights that are barely noticeable. With non- symmetrical pin layouts, it makes it much more difficult (but not impossible!) to get it wrong. Double contacts for twin- filament brake light bulb. Chances are that the original single filament tail light bulb will be a BA1. BAU1. 5s used where a car has clear indicator lenses and so the bulb has to be orange coloured). A BA1. 5d bulb has exactly the same pin layout so should fit directly into your existing BA1. However, the contacts at the bottom are obviously different and so you’ll need to swap that part of the holder assembly for one with two contacts to accept a double filament bulb. With the bulb removed, these contacts should just push out from the rear as they are only usually held in place by the bulb itself pushing against the spring underneath. Most of these contacts are fairly interchangeable as there is no precision fit, but you may need to be careful when inserting the replacement double contact part to make sure that it lines up correctly with the contacts on the bulb. This might take a bit of trial and error, but once it’s in place and the bulb is inserted it should stay where it is easy enough. Just make sure that the bulb is in the right way around as discussed above so that the brake light is the brighter of the two. The LED alternative. An alternative to swapping to a twin filament bulb is to install an LED brake light unit, such as the ones sold on Paul Goff’s website. These completely replace the existing bulb and bulb- holder arrangement with an array of LED’s mounted on a separate circuit board.
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