"Wobbly" headlight

Fitting the Dart Flyscreen helped me sort out the "wobbly" headlight problem which affects older Bonnevilles - I think the newer ones have a more rigid fixing. Even tightening the side bolts up to the recommended 10Nm leaves the light seemingly loose and moveable. The trouble is that the flat washer fitted under each bolt head does not have a large enough diameter hole to allow it to be properly tightened.

There is a rubber bush on the inside of the headlight bracket sandwiched between this and a triangular shaped plate with a projection that goes through the rubber bush to provide a location for the pivot point of the headlight. When you tighten the bolt down the flat washer squeezes against this projection rather than the rubber bush, which does not allow it to compress the rubber, which would then properly secure the headlight shell. If you drill out the hole in the washer to around 9mm you then allow the projection to pass through and will find that the rubber bush will compress and thus securely hold the lamp in position.

This will become apparent when you take it apart even if my explanation is not too clear. One point though, if you are fitting the screen, the instructions say that the washers should go on the outside of the screen brackets. If you do this, then the above solution won't work of course, so you need to add new washers between the bolt heads and the two screen brackets. The enlarged washer must go next to the headlamp bracket.

So far no more wobbly light!