The headlight for this bike is an 8-inch Miller unit.

I do have a good headlamp shell for her but it was fitted with a 7-inch Lucas light unit in a modified Lucas 8-inch to 7-inch reducer rim, not only that but that rim is badly scarred.

While it would be a simple job to knock out the dent caused by the scarring, getting it polished out well enough not to show on the rechromed rim is another matter so it was on the search for parts.

Checked the usual sources, Feked, Burton, Armour, Goffy, VWP and such and while I could readily get an 8-inch Miller lens/reflector unit, the only 8-inch rims I could find were for Lucas headlights.

Miller and Lucas of course use different and non-compatible methods to fit the rim onto the headlamp shell. One of these sites also had a note that the rim was only suitable for a flat glass light unit, the available Miller light units being, of course, domed glass.

Sudden idea!  Velocettes used to use Miller electrics! so I went looking for a Velo parts site and found Grove Classic Motorcycles.

They are a Velo specialist, but of course there is always a range of “Universal” parts so it was onto their web-site.Once there I went straight to the “Electrics” section and sure enough there was an 8-inch Miller lens/reflector there. At first sight though I could only see a Lucas 8-inch rim to go with it.

However on a general trawl through the site for whatever else they had that might be useful I found, under “Miscellaneous”, a choice of not only  an 8-inch Miller rim for a flat glass along with a Miller flat-glass/reflector unit to suit, but an 8-inch rim for the domed glass/reflector unit as well and not only that but they had a handlebar switch I was looking for to suit the 1-inch handlebar my old lady uses.

So it was out with the card and order up the bits. I ordered them yesterday (Thursday) morning and they arrived this morning, (Friday), you can’t ask for better than that!.

Only found two downsides, one was that I had to fit the toggle clip to the rim because it is supplied as a separate unit. This was only a minor hassle but of course has the advantage that in the event of damage to the toggle it does not mean a complete new rim and the other was that when I went to fit the lens unit into the rim and I found that I only had one suitable “W”-clip, the ones in the old unit were too long!, I should have thought of that of course and the ones from the old 5-inch headlamp in the shed were too short, a typical appearance of “Sods Law”!.

Anyway, I’ve got a set of “W”-clips now and have the headlamp together as a unit, looks well. Now I’ll have to see about making up a set of headlamp stays, one thing leads to another all the time.