Author Topic: stop/tail light ideas  (Read 6984 times)

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Offline cb650 bobber

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stop/tail light ideas
« on: March 25, 2008, 07:00:54 AM »
ripped off my taillight when I cut the fender down on the cb. any pics of cool stop light configirations would be greatly appreciated.
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Offline .RJ

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Re: stop/tail light ideas
« Reply #1 on: March 25, 2008, 07:19:18 AM »
I've got one of these... havent come up with a mounting solution yet, but I have ideas bouncing around in my head.


Offline Geeto67

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Re: stop/tail light ideas
« Reply #2 on: March 25, 2008, 08:34:19 AM »
check out mooneyes:
http://www.mooneyesusa.com/Store/index.php

they have a good selection of old hot rod taillights like 1950 pontiac, 1959 cadillac, and 1940 ford, and they also have LED variants. They also have an assortment of housings if you want to french it into your fender. additionally they have hot rod shaped lenses and some of the 1960s-1970s novelty lenses like the hogs head, devils head, cats head, etc....

As long as you are going to pretend your bike is a bobber you might as well use some back in the day hot rod parts.
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Offline cbass*gxc

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Re: stop/tail light ideas
« Reply #3 on: March 25, 2008, 09:05:54 AM »
check out mooneyes:
http://www.mooneyesusa.com/Store/index.php

As long as you are going to pretend your bike is a bobber you might as well use some back in the day hot rod parts.

They do have some cool lights but why do you say he is pretending?  Can a cb not be a bobber?

Offline Geeto67

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Re: stop/tail light ideas
« Reply #4 on: March 25, 2008, 09:55:33 AM »
check out mooneyes:
http://www.mooneyesusa.com/Store/index.php

As long as you are going to pretend your bike is a bobber you might as well use some back in the day hot rod parts.

They do have some cool lights but why do you say he is pretending?  Can a cb not be a bobber?

it can be if you don't really know what a "bobber" is. Traditionally a bobber was what would now be called a "street/strip" bike. Basically it was your everyday rider that doubled as yoru race bike (or an ex race bike put back on the street). They are called bobbers because if you ever saw the gigantic fenders HD, Indian, Triumph, etc put on their bikes you would realize that they needed to be cut to be raced on the flat tracks (dirt tracks) that were becoming widespread in america at that time (usually travelling with country fairs or stock car races). On harleys it was a simple as removing a hinge pin and removing the rear section of the fender. The act of cutting the fender short was called bobbing (like the haircut from the 30s) and the bikes themselves were originally called bobtails and then eventually bobbers. Right around the 1960s having your streetbike double as your race bike phased out as factories got more involved and competition heated up (and the cost of racing took the sport out of the league of the poor). So unless your bike is a street/race bike built before the end of the 1960s I don't really see how it can be a true bobber.

What people call bobbers today are actually early style choppers. Before the long bike craze in the late 1960s/early 1970s, guys would build their streetbikes into chopped down bikes for the sake of style and performance. A lot of these bikes took cues and ideas from race bikes of the era including flat track and drag race bikes (the same source as the bobbers) but were not actually competition bikes. In the 1970s, hardcore choppers like the kinds 1%'ers rode were not the big iconic long bikes but were more like these early choppers - stripped down, jockey shift, lowered, springers, etc...

the problem is you get a bunch of ignorant guys looking at old "nostalgic" looking photos of old race bikes and early choppers and seeing no real difference between a street bike that actually doubles as a race bike and a streetbike that just looks like it does you end up with people calling early style choppers "bobbers". Additionally there are people who are so hung up with labels that they don't want their bikes called choppers because that term has become linked with the exagerrated long bikes and the jessie james style high dollar customs that they want to differentiate themselves - so they misappropriate the term.

Personally you can build a really nice early style hardcore chop out of a cb650, but unless you pan on actually cutting that rear fender and taking the thing flat track racing on sundays and then riding to work on mondays, I don't see how you can call it a bobber.....no matter what "the horse", "ironhorse", "hot bike", or any other style maven tells ya....

<end rant>
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Offline 754

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Re: stop/tail light ideas
« Reply #5 on: March 25, 2008, 10:20:18 AM »
My bike was  a bracket racer for a while, then put back on the street.

.. but I call it a digger or early streetfighter...
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Offline Geeto67

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Re: stop/tail light ideas
« Reply #6 on: March 25, 2008, 10:21:28 AM »
My bike was  a bracket racer for a while, then put back on the street.

.. but I call it a digger or early streetfighter...

same kind of thing.....

My h1 is pretty much the same way - was my bracket bike and after the track closed became my street bike.
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Offline cb650 bobber

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Re: stop/tail light ideas
« Reply #7 on: March 25, 2008, 11:00:01 AM »
rear fender cut...ride it to work...dont race it because i would rather be chilling on the street....my BOBBER is just stripped of all unnecassary things and fenders cut so it is light as it can be. I have always been told they were bobbers when guys came back from the war and wanted duplicate the bikes they had riden over seas lighter and faster. So they stripped fender and things they didnt need to make them light.
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Offline cb650 bobber

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Re: stop/tail light ideas
« Reply #8 on: March 25, 2008, 11:01:05 AM »
I just wanted some cool tail light ideas even from a cafe or bobber or chopper or flobber any bike you changed the tail light.
"I make a point of staying right at the edge of poverty. I don't have a pair of pants without a hole in them, and the only pair of boots I have are on my feet. I don't mess around with unnecessary stuff, so I don't need much money. Von Dutch

Offline Joel

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Re: stop/tail light ideas
« Reply #9 on: March 25, 2008, 11:01:44 AM »
I like the chevron-style tail light on that website.  It has a clean retro look to it.

I've been trying to come up with a cleaner-looking tail light and the idea I liked best was a semi-circle with the top half cut off just above the centerline and a reflector in the center behind the lens.  I'll make up a rough drawing and put it on here.  I've been trying to find a lens approximately 5" in diameter to use and possibly a spherical housing to use.  The housing would probably be easy enough to fabricate out of fiberglass.

Offline cbass*gxc

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Re: stop/tail light ideas
« Reply #10 on: March 25, 2008, 11:03:13 AM »
Hmm nice to learn something new.  I have chopped my back fender and I will ride it to work on Monday and Tuesday and the rest of the week, but I dont think there are any tracks around here.  I had thought about taking it to the drag strip to see how it runs but other than that I dont think I can do much racing around here.

This is the tail light that I like.  It doesnt have any dimensions so I sent them and email to see if they could tell me.

« Last Edit: March 25, 2008, 11:05:14 AM by cbass*gxc »

Offline Geeto67

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Re: stop/tail light ideas
« Reply #11 on: March 25, 2008, 11:15:18 AM »
rear fender cut...ride it to work...dont race it because i would rather be chilling on the street....my BOBBER is just stripped of all unnecassary things and fenders cut so it is light as it can be. I have always been told they were bobbers when guys came back from the war and wanted duplicate the bikes they had riden over seas lighter and faster. So they stripped fender and things they didnt need to make them light.

That is pretty much the definition of a chopper.

But anyway.....

There is a guy on the caferacer board (and I think a member here too) who uses this on his bike:

http://www.customdynamics.com/led_billet_circle.htm


and here is a pic of his bike:


surf around this site and you will see some pretty clean LED setups that will make a good deal of your lights hidden, some of it isn't cheap but when you think about it you won't ever need to replace a bulb again after an LED:

http://www.customdynamics.com/

old 1950s cars are a great source of weird shapes. Oldsmobiles, buicks, mercuries, and chryslers espically. I forget what year imperial it is but it has a really weird and cool looking pedistal mounted taillight - 1955 I think.

here is a set of neat looking later (57-58-59) ones:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/57-58-59-Chrysler-Imperial-Tail-light-assembly-pair_W0QQitemZ170203799694QQihZ007QQcategoryZ33716QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

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Offline Geeto67

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« Last Edit: March 25, 2008, 11:31:18 AM by Geeto67 »
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Offline chopstar500

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Re: stop/tail light ideas
« Reply #13 on: March 25, 2008, 12:04:32 PM »
I have an idea... but it's for my bike & I don't want you to steal it. All joking aside, I think vintage/unique lighting is the way to go.
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Offline cbass*gxc

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Re: stop/tail light ideas
« Reply #14 on: March 25, 2008, 01:23:19 PM »
I was thinking something like this for the time being.  And then upgrading later.



The thing about it is the way that I have to mount it.  I want to use the 2 bolts that are already there if possible and with the way this light is I could just make an "L" bracket and it should work.


Offline Geeto67

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Re: stop/tail light ideas
« Reply #15 on: March 25, 2008, 01:40:18 PM »
BTW, my chopper used to have a cool, glass, made in the 1970s, slim, chrome tailight. When some arsehat kicked the thing in when the bike was parked on the street I got this trailer light out of the bargan bin at the local Autozone. I am pretty sure it cost me $5.99 plus tax.

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Offline big blue

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Re: stop/tail light ideas
« Reply #16 on: March 26, 2008, 07:33:22 PM »
BTW, my chopper used to have a cool, glass, made in the 1970s, slim, chrome tailight. When some arsehat kicked the thing in when the bike was parked on the street I got this trailer light out of the bargan bin at the local Autozone. I am pretty sure it cost me $5.99 plus tax.



+1 on the trailer light. It is going on my cafe.
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Offline Joel

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Re: stop/tail light ideas
« Reply #17 on: March 26, 2008, 08:28:56 PM »
I was thinking something like this for the time being.  And then upgrading later.



The thing about it is the way that I have to mount it.  I want to use the 2 bolts that are already there if possible and with the way this light is I could just make an "L" bracket and it should work.



That light has a nice, clean look to it.  I say go for it.

Offline 754

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Re: stop/tail light ideas
« Reply #18 on: March 26, 2008, 08:55:40 PM »
The cateye, I had mentioned.

Make sure to shim under the bolts or drill a 3rd hole for the wires or they will pinch. Ness makes nice covers but pricey for them, bike places sell the lights chromed.
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Offline FunJimmy

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Re: stop/tail light ideas
« Reply #19 on: February 01, 2009, 11:50:47 AM »
Any new ideas for tail light?
I'm looking to redo mine this winter too.

Thanks
FJ
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Re: stop/tail light ideas
« Reply #20 on: February 01, 2009, 03:33:53 PM »
here is a really neat desoto lens and bezel:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170204318483



this cateye prettymuch solves your rear stop and signal problems all in one:
http://www.customdynamics.com/cateyez.htm


i got one of their 4" cateye brake/tail/tag lights for my k4 it's bright bright BRIGHT!