This took longer than expected. But first, let's go back to 2021 and see where the problem came from. I was happily riding my 1954 KH down a gravel road that was formerly
part of the Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. estate. All of a sudden, my headlamp decided to become detached. It would have fallen off, except it was fortunately restrained by a bunch of wires.
I immediately stopped, and saw that the nut-bolts (and spacers) holding the headlight mounting bracket to the fork were missing. Bad words! What to do now? I pulled off my t-shirt, leaving me dressed in shorts and tennis shoes. I nestled the headlamp inside the t-shirt. There wasn't enough material to tie it to anything, so I just held it with my left hand. This left my right hand free to operate the throttle and clutch. Getting going from a dead stop was a little tricky, but I did it, and drove back up the gravel road in first gear.
This worked fine until I got to a paved road, where I had to make a 90-degree turn. Fortunately, no one was coming, so I was able to make the turn. As I gained speed, I managed to do a clutchless shift into second gear. I must have been quite a sight - puttered along at 20 mph, bare-chested, clutching my severed headlight in its t-shirt wrapping. Fortunately for them, I encountered no other vehicles on my way home.
I had found NOS nut-bolts. Per this forum thread, I made some spacers .300 long (in between the reported .285 and .310). Then came the assembly order question. My terminal plate ears had been between the spacers and the lower triple-tree. I tried them between the spacers and the mounting bracket, and that worked, but the more rearward position allowed the speedo cable and but nut holding the headlight to the bracket to not interfere with each other. The rearward position leaves a 1/4" space between the terminal plate and the steering head.
Quiz Answer B, the raked triple trees on the 1952-1954 models, allow the terminal plate ears to be mounted in either location. Answers A and C are true, but they have no effect on the terminal plate-to-frame head spacing.
I mounted the headlight up just fine. Now it's time for the big test. Failure! The OIL light did not come on, and the headlight only worked on high beam. The tan wire inside the headlight had separated at the t-connector from all the rough handling. A little work fixed that. The headlamp was a little loose in the electrical connection. A little work fixed that. I start to button it up, and one of the three aluminum locating tabs on the headlamp falls off onto the floor.
I have an original Cycle-Beam headlamp, but it's not on the bike. Instead, I have the car version of this metal backed headlamp, used on some late 1940s and early 1950s cars. Check out
this Technical article. You see them on eBay once in awhile. It fits perfectly in the headlamp shell, and since I don't drive the bike at night, it really doesn't matter that its too powerful for the bike's charging system.
- Metal backed headlight - car version
- DMH_016833-72.jpg (104.09 KiB) Viewed 3807 times
Now what to do? The little aluminum piece has two tits which fit in two holes in the headlamp back, but they're broken off. Well, I just JB-Welded the little aluminum piece back to the metal headlamp back, waited 24 hours.
- JB-Weld to the rescue!
- DMH_016839-72.jpg (59.6 KiB) Viewed 3806 times
Voila! So the moral of this story is that for 1955 and 1956 KHs, the terminal plate ears MUST go between the spacers and mounting bracket. On 1952-1954 KHs, the ears can go EITHER there, or between the spacers and the lower fork bracket.
What a long-winded story! Sorry.