Commando S tail light

Hi, can anyone please tell me if the top of rear number plate holder is attached to the inside or outside of the tail light fairing, thanks, David

It's not that simple. http://www.oldbritts.com/1971_g22.html

The metal plate, 7, attaches to some spacers behind the fiberglass somehow. That picture is not real, there are cut outs in the fiberglass part 5 that have bolts through something that the plate mounts too. I can prolly get some pics if you need them. Posting them is another issue, or I could just email them to you. It's a convoluted mounting system and you have to make sure your ground is working right for the rear lamp. I can work with you if necessary.

Dave

Hi Dave, thanks for the reply. As there aren't any detailed diagrams, would you mind sending me some photos please, I just want to make sure I put this baby back correctly, David

I just did that, and Dave is right - it is a pain. I had to look at some of the high res pics of the CNW builds to see how they slot together.

The cowl (28) sits to the rear of the number plate holder (7), which sits inside the tail lamp fairing (5).



I used the TAIL LAMP PILLAR NUT (06.3921) from my 74 instead of the spacers (19), and could screw in the cowl/lamp assembly to the spacers and then the spacers to the number plate.

I love the look of that Lucas L679 taillight, and bought a whole rear fender, bracket, fairing, light and lens, etc. to make it so, switch it out for the square one on my 74.
But this picture with the bricks in the background shows exactly why it didn't happen, with the taillight drooping, pointing downward.
Anybody ever succeed in making this light level or even slightly upward without pulling up the rear frame loop to a silly angle?

Mr. Rick said:

I love the look of that Lucas L679 taillight, and bought a whole rear fender, bracket, fairing, light and lens, etc. to make it so, switch it out for the square one on my 74.
But this picture with the bricks in the background shows exactly why it didn't happen, with the taillight drooping, pointing downward.
Anybody ever succeed in making this light level or even slightly upward without pulling up the rear frame loop to a silly angle?

Click to expand...

Small price to pay for losing the brick of the L917.

And the cowl is painted in metalflake silver, not black!
Those were the seventies..

Going to see if I can post a pic.



Dose this help? I made an AL bracket same size as the license plate to mount to part 7.

rivera said:

And the cowl is painted in metalflake silver, not black!
Those were the seventies..

Click to expand...

Not a big deal but:
And the S cowl is metalflake silver, not black!
The color is in the clear base polyester gelcoat.
The black ones were black gelcoat.

fireflake said:

Hi again David. Just to clarify, how is the top of the number plate bracket secured to the fibre glass section, sorry for being a bit dense!! David

Click to expand...

Hi David - the top is secured with through the license plate bracket with bolts/spacer (29 and 19 on diagram http://www.oldbritts.com/1971_g22.html). As I said, I reused the pillar nuts of of my 74, not the spacer.

You can see the piller nut in this pic, behind the license plate bracket. Good thing I took this pic, as it looks like I forgot to put the screw in to secure it when i reassembled!




The spacer (or pillar nut) sits between the license plate bracket and the cowl. You can see the cowl underneath the fiberglass faring in front of the lens. This cowl is either through bolted by (29) or in my case it is attached to the lamp assembly by a screw on the opposite end of the pillar nut.



Hope this helps

Nipper, your pics are not showing up for me.

For me to explain how it goes together, I'd have to take it apart. But it also looks like my assembly is somewhat different than the OB link which is actually for a 71. There's no pics of the 68-70 that I know of. I don't have that part #17. And there's a part of the tail light metal frame that I'm not sure is showing up on the OB link. Fireflake, if you really want I'll disassemble it for pics unless you have the UK style plate. I'm thinking it may be a bit different for the US plate since they are much smaller and mount off the lower part of item 7. Mine originally had a thick plastic or cardboard plate that I replaced with the aluminum bracket and as you can see I still had to set the license plate off with spacers (nuts) because of the mounting.

Also, as to the assembly pointing down as Mr. Rick mentions, mine doesn't, it points a bit up to the rear when I line it up against a horizontal surface. It may be the difference between the 69/70 rear mudguard and the 71 up. There is a difference.

Many thanks to DogT and gortnipper for your photos which are very explanatory, just what I needed, thanks again guys, David

Also, as to the assembly pointing down as Mr. Rick mentions, mine doesn't, it points a bit up to the rear when I line it up against a horizontal surface. It may be the difference between the 69/70 rear mudguard and the 71 up. There is a difference.
Thanks, DogT!
Besides the pump indent on the right, do you think the fenders are similar enough to use the later one, re-drilled? I was willing to do this, but decided for some reason that it could not be done, or would not help. Maybe I just had the wrong fairing?

Well, actually I sort of misspoke. I actually have a 71 rear mudguard on my 69 bike. I still have my original rear guard, but it's too rough for me to use. So I don't know how to explain that one. I'm sure the frame and mounting points off the battery carrier (horn point) and the holes for the rear fairing are all the same, maybe at least through 72 or 73? I got my 71 chrome guard from Old Brits a long time ago for $100, they were trying to get rid of them for some reason and told me they didn't want it back. I was willing to accept that and it looks/mounted OK but it's not period correct.

As far as re-drilling, the only difference you might find is on the 69/70, S types there are 2 types of rear guards and the 69/70 guards were more of a C section rather than the later D section guards. Some mount off a curved plate (06-1400) attached to the web at the rear of the large frame tube and the holes in the guard for that mount are below that web. My bike came with a guard that was mounted to a strap between the upper shock mounts, I've never seen a part number for that item that I can remember, plus the holes for that mount are up between the shock tops as you can imagine. I had to re-drill the 71 guard for my mount.

The amount my rear fairing points up is very little, bordering on horizontal.

The amount my rear fairing points up is very little, bordering on horizontal.
Very little wd be good enough for me. Which fairing are you using, that makes this possible?

I think the Old Britts alloy one does not droop as much on the later fenders.

https://www.oldbritts.com/17_100030.html

gortnipper's fairing is just about like what mine looks like in the 'up' position. Mine is the stock one that came with the bike, Apr 69 production date. FF silver.

That is not mine, just a pic I grabbed. I went with one of the AN black ones, with the standard L679 lens so I could reuse my led stop lamp board.

The OB fairing uses a different pattern lens.

The OB fairing uses a different pattern lens.
Right. And we won't mention the $225 (unpolished) price, either. :shock:

IF you can tell me the PN of any fairing, Norton or otherwise, which permits horizontal mounting of the beehive 679, I'd be much obliged, ya.