January 17, 2012

By bungking

This is a how to post on how to make your own licence plate tail light mount using one of our Licence Plate Backing Plates with a Model A Tail Light. We at www.bungking.com offer our backing plate in a few different styles, the one I am going to be using in this post is one of our horizontal mount Model A style Licence plate backing plates. Most of our other backing plates can be used in a similar fashion with the tips shown in this post. Some will need to have, or want to for local vehicle codes, a lighted licence plate. You can do this usually two different ways, get a tail light that has a clear window in the bottom of it that will shine down onto the licence plate or add a separate licence plate frame that has lighting in it. In this case the Model A light has a licence plate light built in ( there are two different types make sure you get the one that has the window in it).

These backing plates can be found athttp://www.bungking.com/accessories/licence-plate.html

So I first start off with one of our CNC cut licence plate backing plates made from 1/8″ mild steel. This is a little thicker than what most manufacturers use but the extra thickness will reduce the risk of cracking as well as reduce the chance of warping while welding. The plate is already cut with all of the holes needed to mount the licence plate as well as the tail light making it a big time saver.

I first start out by deciding where I would like it to be located and in this case I am going to install it directly behind the primary drive. The primary always stick out quite a bit so it makes a good location to install a plate, as a posed to at the rear of the bike where nothing is sticking out and may tend to catch your leg on it every time you walk by. The belt primary in this case has two bolt holes used to hold the jackshaft support plate in place in close proximity so I will be using these holes for mounting so that no other holes or mounts need to be installed onto the frame. I start by making a plate that will bolt to the primary.

After the plate is made up and bolted to the primary I hold the licence plate backing plate in place where I think it looks good and tack it place. Any adjustments are made to make sure that it is straight in all planes and then I move on to the next step.

The next thing I like to add is a gusset to help support the relation of the two plate I tacked together earlier. By adding a gusset, even a small one, will reduce the risk of your weld cracking from only being supported in one plane as would happen if you had just welded the two plates together. I have fixed many customers broken lic plate mounts that they have purchased from the aftermarket because this step was skipped.

Once all of the parts are tacked in place and I am happy with the straightness of everything I pull it off of the bike and take it to the welding bench and fully weld up the assembly.

After it is all welded up and had a chance to cool down naturally it is time to bolt it back up to the bike and take a look at how it looks with the taillight in place.

By using our precut bacing plates found athttp://www.bungking.com/accessories/licence-plate.html you can speed up your fabricatin process and make up a mount of your very own that looks as professional as any one you would purchase out of the catologs in a minimal ammount of time and money. And best of all by making your own mounting system you can gaurentee that it actually fits your application. Don’t waste the money on a finished powdercoated mount that you may have to modify to work for you when you can spend a little time and make what you want the first time.