An FX1 happened to be in for inspection, and I got permission to use it. I’m happily taking advantage of that.
The superbikes of that era came with fenders, and maybe that aesthetic still flows through my mind. The GS1000S isn’t fenderless either—it’s got a mature fender setup.
It’s a repro, but I wish it had a more matte finish. Maybe I should hunt for a used one…
The front mounting pitch is the same, so no problem there. I’m hunting for the rear position.
Being an old-timer, I’m a sucker for the word LED. Sure enough, they were selling LED tail lamps, so I went with those.
Lately I’ve gotten too comfortable with taking shortcuts in fabrication, and that’s not good.
Shear cut, press bend, spot weld over and over—there’s hardly any room for failure. If something’s short, reinforce and cover it.
Whether that’s good or bad… well, that’s the question.
The rod that goes into the tail cowl is just pipe—that’s enough. I didn’t want it to melt, so I kept the welds rough and coarse.
The tail lamp is properly floating. It jiggles around. I think rigid mounting at the tip or end of something usually causes problems.
Our shop’s tools have gotten so convenient lately that up to 60mm diameter, it’s just punch, whirrrr-clang, deburr, done. It’s over in a flash.
You probably won’t need it, but we can punch out up to 198mm diameter—just bang and it’s out.
I thought the lamp side might need reinforcement, but it’s more solid than I expected, so I’m leaving it as is.
When installed, it looks like this. Very simple and clean.
Next is securing the tail cowl.
I had no idea how much the lamp should protrude, so I hit up Google image search.
About 10mm? I wasn’t sure, so I just went with my preference.
Next is the license plate bracket. That can be done anytime, so I’ll get to it later.
Next up is the seat, I guess… I’m planning to move forward without cutting the frame as much as possible.
Should I make the seat base from aluminum? Or use a repro?
I want to use both angular and rounded bodywork, so I’m a bit torn.
Since there’s no passenger, maybe a small storage compartment inside the seat base would be nice?
