Light bucket questions

Hey Everyone and a happy new year.
Working on improving my original electrical build this winter. Thought I might ask if anyone knows which bike this light bucket might have come from?
That's just to satisfy my curiosity.
-I do wonder about the Ammeter. specifically the black substance seen within the unit from the underside. Could that be from a short/burn or might it be insulating goop? I used it last fall and it seems to work but I'd hate to put something in line that might degrade a modern electrical system.

It looks like a generic Lucas shell, very common to Triumph BSA and Norton from around '67 to '71. The blue gem should be high beam and the red gem oil pressure. Live amp meters can be problematic, if in doubt by pass it and keep it as an ornament. With modern solid state regulator / rectifiers, the amp meter is pretty redundant.

I've never had any problems with my ammeter, they always seem to take that tilt to the left from the pics I've seen and mine too.

Dave
69S

It's from a '68 to '70 Triumph 500 and 650 road models, not the scramblers.

I'd bypass the ammeter and leave it as direction. The needle will dance around either way, just from vibration of the bike, so it'll look like something is going on.
From experience, the ammeter is known to fail, or be intermittent. It really sucks to chase down an electrical problem and then of course, as a last resort, realize that it's a faulty ammeter. It's happened to me and it was maddening. Bypassed and problem solved.

Thanks for the input gents.
I kinda agree that it is more an item that may cause problems, adds 6' of wire and another (questionable) connection. It is fun to watch. But, It's done it's primary job when I first started the bike by letting me know how poor the original 120W alternator was charging. Now that I've installed a 200W stator hopefully that will not be a problem. Anyway, it's always nice to bounce things off other people.

ML said:

It looks like a generic Lucas shell, very common to Triumph BSA and Norton from around '67 to '71. The blue gem should be high beam and the red gem oil pressure. Live amp meters can be problematic, if in doubt by pass it and keep it as an ornament. With modern solid state regulator / rectifiers, the amp meter is pretty redundant.

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Oil pressure? not turn signal? What apparatus measured oil pressure?

That looks pretty much identical to the light shell on my 1970 roadster. I have replaced the ammeter as it waved around so much I couldn't be confident about its reading, but it did show consistently in negative with the light on. Interestingly ( to me in my ignorance ) the replacement also shows about negative 10 amps when the light is on full beam with new Sparx 3 phase alternator and new regulator/ rectifier. I posted about that and one reply said that the ammeter would read the circuit that the light was on , not the battery/charging circuit, which I find puzzling given that they are connected, but such testing that I have done seems to back that - still not 100% confident that is the case.

A 70 should only have 3 holes in the top, switch, ammeter and high beam indicator.

Roadrash said:

Oil pressure? not turn signal? What apparatus measured oil pressure?

Click to expand...

There was a oil pressure sender switch on the front of the timing cover on later Triumphs. As the motor starts and pumps up, the red light would go out. In '71 Tri BSA went to the pan shell with an added orange gem for indicators.

I'd leave it as a decorative hole filler w/o wires myself. My never connected one's needle never bounces unless I hit a good bump/hole. Its pretty useless extra handful of less watts of brightness to run with. I don't think many having to ride in slow conditions the gauge alerted you to discharge state would speed up in traffic to keep needle on the hi side. I'd put a color change LED in the indictor lamp as can easy see vintage signals winking on stalks and pretty easy to tell if engine running w/o a light but could fool ya leaving key on of course.