Project CBR600F: Facial Reconstruction Part 1

The Hurricane came to me essentially faceless, wearing only a sub frame and busted gauge cluster.  With my Android Dash in place, I needed to come up with a lighting solution and weather protection.  I browsed Amazon for some aftermarket LED options, initially settling on a round 7" LED headlight, complete with fork mounts and bucket.  However, I picked a vintage Lockhart windscreen and decided it wouldn't look right with a round headlight.  

I bet you can feel the 80's vibe through your screen right now.

The windscreen normally attaches to the sub frame but that has been tossed to the scrap heap, so I'll be fabbing my own mounts.  Speaking of mounts, fork mounts, or "ears" as some call them, can set you back a healthy bit of dough.  During my XJ Naked Conversion, I made ears out of an old road sign.  It cost me about $10 total, including the hardware; so I decided to go that route again.  

The other reason for dumping the round headlight is that I've always loved the face of the Ulysses XB12X that I used to own.  So, I found a set of dual LED fog lights (spot / flood combo) and a pit bike super moto fender.  Time to get to work! 

My inspiration.

The forks are roughly 8" apart, so I want to keep the headlights spaced to avoid an "eyes too close together" look.  Adding in a 1/4" on each side for the ears and windshield mounts should put it right about perfect.  I'll need to source some sort of metal (preferably aluminium) spacer for the center. The lights will be mounted together with some lock nuts and all thread.  This should allow me some play to adjust the lights up and down as needed.  These things are incredibly bright for their size, hopefully they have a good life span. 

Finding an aluminum spacer proved to be difficult, so I tried a few different approaches using coupler nuts but eventually settled on just using the mount that came with the lights.  This allowed me to mount the super moto fender nice and high.  It's more for aesthetics but it will give some protection from tire spray. 

I'm getting a real cyborg Gonzo vibe (as in the Muppets). 

Next, it was time to start mocking up the fork ears.  First draft is ok but I failed to take into account the rubber edging I would be using on the base material.  I should be able to cut them both from a single sheet of aluminum mesh.  

Mk1 ready for drilling!

Fancy JDM fender washers! Going to use these for the ear and side panel mounts.

The fork ear design may get a second shape but it works for now.  

The first round of mock-ups is looking good.  Nothing is lined up or mounted properly but I'm liking it. 

Next up is fabbing the mounts for the windscreen and buttoning it all up.