Tail Lights (Plenty of 'em) and Speedometer...

I've been working on the small stuff on my red SL90 project, like the tail light assembly and speedometer assembly.  

Interestingly, I seem to be accumulating lots of extra parts and this is a good thing!  It seems like what should be the simplest task gets complicated by old "crash and thrash" damage that these old SL90's suffered from back in the day (just look at the gas tanks and handlebars for examples and I had to fabricate a new kick-stand mounting point due to crash damage).

Case in point, I now have three tail light assemblies, one with new chrome, one with rusty, crusty chrome and one with original no-rust chrome.  When I went to install the assembly with the new chrome, I found that the bottom bracket that bolts to the rear fender was damaged (bent up) from an old impact.  It would not line up with the holes in the fender, so I will need to do some delicate metal work to fix it.  The tail light assembly with the rust is ok in terms of the mounting points.  It also was in a collision and it has minor, cosmetic damage - I may re-chrome it (still deciding).  Fortunately, the original, no-rust assembly has no damage - per the seller, this unit was taken off by dealer back in the early 70's and put on the shelf.  The chrome is "ok", not show quality, but good enough for running around, so I'll use it while I work on the first assembly and/or re-chrome the other one...

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Here's the dealer "take-off" assembly (above).

One task that did go smoothly was the cleaning and assembly of the speedometer (thankfully).  It looks great!

This is the October photo - note that there are some things that are not correct and will be replaced (What's wrong with this picture?).  Here's the list:  wrong handlebars (they are off a Honda S90 and actually feel fairly decent in terms of reach), the rear shock absorbers - I think they are CT90 shocks (I'm working on cleaning the stock shocks), the wheels will be replaced (I've got the "new" front wheel on my workbench), the seat (too much tuck 'n roll) and, the tank stripes - my stripe guy can't do them due to a management/labor issue.  Fortunately, I found a new stripe guy, so I should be able to get them done soon.  So, all those details aside, I think the red SL90 is looking pretty good!