Tackled the custom "headlight" today with Dad's help. I didn't get a ton of progress photos due to how little time Dad had available to help me out, but we did make a great deal of progress on it. It would have been done tonight too, if the JB Weld hadn't failed in one spot after some fiddling with adjustments.
Here's how the headlight goes together, or at least, how it
wenttogether. There's this threaded sleeve that's JB Welded to the center of the back of the VW emblem. The piece of plywood sits directly behind the emblem, wrapped around the threaded sleeve. A high-powered magnet and washer holds the plywood in place thanks to a coned bolt that threads into the sleeve. The magnet then attaches to a strip of steel thats JB Welded inside the fence post topper "headlight" body, securing the VW emblem to the front of the headlight.
As you can see, the JB Weld failed on the sleeve connected to the VW emblem. Dad thinks if we add more JB Weld inside the emblem surrounding the sleeve, it will solve the problem. I'm worried it won't be strong enough, and we'll have to drill a hole into the emblem for an unmodified sleeve to fit into place. We'll hopefully find out tomorrow.
There is one more custom piece that Dad helped me with today. I still had this one old layback seat post I wanted to use, especially since the seat I'm using isn't easy to move back for a more comfortable ride. I didn't have a shim for it, but I did have a few spare seat posts I could cut and weld the layback post into. So I used a pipe cutter to trim the seat post shim, filed the inside edge, and then Dad took the two pieces to the local VoTech for one of the students to weld together. Unfortunately, what should have been a quick 15-minute tack-welding task turned into... well, something I might have done if I tried to weld it: overkill. Still, it's solid, it fits inside the seat tube, and it pushed the seat back and down a couple inches. Good enough for me!
Dad and I will try and fix the headlight tomorrow so I can finish that up, and I might try working on the coaster brake too, but tomorrow will most likely be spent getting my stuff packed up to head back home on Saturday. I want to get the coaster brake hub reassembled soon, that way I can get the bike in a rideable state ASAP. This next week is showing a steady amount of rain, so I don't know how I'm going to get good photos for the voting period. The sooner I can have the bike ready for photos though, the better!
