Headlight and Bucket Install

Hey guys,

not sure if this is the right spot to post this but ill give it a shot,

So i picked up a 1981 cb750k back in september with the idea to turn it into a cafe/tracker/brat thing. it came with a shadow royale windjammer/windscreen thing which looked silly in my opinion...anyways I thought that I would just take the headlight out of the windjammer and use that as my headlight since the bike didnt come with any other headlight.

So now i have been searching on the local CL for a bucket for this light and picked up a 7" bucket that looked good but unfortunately i forgot to take the headlight with me to see if it would fit...it was a reasonable price so i took the chance that it would fit pretty easily..

Now I am sitting at home and trying to figure this out... the light does not fit unless I remove the backing that has the bracket tabs on it and when that comes off the light becomes too small for the bucket, but with that backing, it is just too big

am I SOL with this or does anybody have any ideas or experience with this? Perhaps a rubber ring of some sort or cutting the tabs...? any help would be appreciated and before everyone calls me a bonehead for not taking the light with me...well I dont have an excuse so I guess it was a bit of a bone head move haha anyways like I said any help or information would be greatly appreciated!

It looks like the parts you have are different than the original Honda headlight mounts. This one:

http://www.dimecitycycles.com/vintage-cafe-racer-caferacer-bobber-brat-chopper-custom-motorcycle-lighting-parts-satin-black-7-inch-headlight-bucket-66-65010.html

From DCC is nearly indiscernible from factory mid-early 70's CB750's factory parts, though the later bikes like yours may be different. I have used this unit myself and it is very good quality - especially for the money. Takes a standard old -school cheap and bomb proof automotive sealed beam too. (In fact, the last one I used got a lamp I robbed literally from the remains an old junk car!) The mounting ring you have looks like 80's era automotive parts and may have been a replacement for all the Honda parts to work with the fairing. You can't tilt the entire fairing up and down to adjust the headlight, so Vetter probably incorporated readily available car parts to make adjusting from the front easy like a car.

Hard to tell from the pics, but it looks like you are missing the actual mount for the lamp that fits your new trim ring. Most styles use an additional chrome trim ring that clamps onto the lamp much like what you have, but is made to work with the outer trim ring that goes on the bucket. The inner trim ring that holds the lamp pivots inside the outer ring to allow for side to side adjustment. the whole bucket assembly pivots on its brackets (sounds like you need these too) for up and down adjustment.

FWIW, I recently got a beautiful trim ring that was the perfect exact thing for a 70's restoration I was doing. Chinese, but actually a really nice part. Fit flawlessly on the original bucket. Unfortunately, it had absolutely no mounting provisions of any sort to mount anything inside it, much less the actual lamp, so it was "same as scrap". Perhaps you have acquired something similar.

ahhh okay ya i figured there must have been a change for the light to mount in to the fairing..
soooo what youre saying is there is no way for it to work?

because I have been fiddling with it tonight and have taken off the rings and mounts from the light and it sits in the bucket nicely but just has nothing to mount to so I guess now I am wondering if there is a sealant I can use to stick it all together or if a rubber ring of some sort...just anything to keep it sitting flush to the outer ring rather than slipping back in to the bucket

See edit of previous post. Yes, you could simply glue it together with some silicone etc. If I did that, the bulb would last about a day just because it would be so hard to replace. (Murphy). Easy to fix things never need repairs, glued together things fail repeatedly!

okay ya i would prefer not to use silicon or something of the sort


I look around and ask some local shops just thought I would start asking around on this forum since im constantly cruising through all the build threads and other sections. hopefully I will start my own build thread soon.

Thanks for your help!