(don't) Flip This Bike!

[CYBORG]

painting is not that bad. but beware of the temp. and the humidity . 70-75 is best temp and 50% or less humidity is great. good luck with that this summer

[Roady]

Thanks for the tip. Figured I'd have to wait on the paint a while.

[KYpondman]

Great job on the bags, gives me some ideas for my future '83 bagger. I want lights in the bags, but that allows for a lot of choices. I had ordered some smd5s earlier and ordered some smd1s yesterday. Enough to do at least 3 bikes.
Claude

[Rat]

"Kitty Hair' ?

Is THAT where all the kittens go ?

Gord

[drcroog]

Soylent Kitten

[Roady]

Yep, my wife asked why I spent $20 on it when we have tons of that from NIMBY, the black kitty.

Crashdown said (insisted) that before doing the glazing compound I should sand down the inside and apply a layer of fiberglass cloth and resin. He said that it would keep it from cracking. I'm guessing that's because the kitty hair is kind of soft, it did sand down pretty easy.

So I lied before in that post when I said that I'd never, ever done any body work. About 8 years ago I repaired a crack in the fairing on my FZ1. Bought a fiberglass kit and did a small patch. I still have the kit and opened it up today to find that it was all in good shape.

I sanded the inside of the bag, cut pieces of the cloth to size, mixed up the resin and hardener and did a bang up glassing job on both bags. It's a good thing that this is the inside of the bag.

[Rat]

Very pretty .....

Gord

[Fred Camper]

Not sure the fibreglass was necessary as that Kitty hair has lots of fibre and even if it sands easy it still looks as sound as the base bag and the real limit is the bond between the bag and the patch. Now fibreglass will aid the bond, so if the bond was weak it may not be an issue anymore.

[polkadot]

Roady you are a true glass artist! What do you call your masterpiece?

[Roady]

I think "Glopp" would be a good name for it.

[Roady]

We had an absolutely beautiful day today (FINALLY!) and I couldn't help but get out to the shop and spend some time with Winnie. Figured that I'd mount up the frames and bags to make sure they are going to fit before investing a ton of time and money painting.

Proof of Concept

I started in on the frames. I'm using the standard's stock grab bar so the top-rear tabs of the bag mounts were about 1/2 inch too wide. I cut 1/4 inch off both sides of each with the hacksaw and then ground them down smooth. The top mounts ended up being the same width (3/4 inch) as the tube stock.

Next, it was a run to Ace for nuts, bolts and washers where I spent nearly $15. I got 2 long (about 3 inch?) 6mm bolts with washers for the top-rear mounts; 4 6mm 2 inch bolts with nuts and lock washers for the bottom of the bags; 2 3/4 inch rubber padded pipe clamps* to attach the inner front of the bags to the grab bar (thanks Britman for recommending these); and 2 more 6mm 1 inch bolts with nuts and lock washers for the clamps. I mentioned that it was a tiny bag for 15 smackers ... the checker said, "Well, they're all metric." Maybe some day that won't make a difference.

The mounts went on perfectly and are very strong. The left bag needed an extra rubber grommet under the rear to clear the turn signal but otherwise went together smooth. On the right side, the muffler was about an inch higher than the left so I had to take time to angle it down a bit. Just added a short bracket with two holes to move it off of the stock mounting point but it took about an hour and a half to free it up at the header-muffler clamp. Then the right bag went on with no need of any extra padding.

This works for me so the bags will come off and I'll finish up the finish on 'em.

(No time to run in for the camera before work so it's crappy cellphone pics for now.)





Concept Proven

The next problem to solve. The mufflers come in about 3 inches past the front of the bags and are only about 2 inches below the bottoms.



Maybe a set of turn downs from O'Reilly? Slip them over the ends of the mufflers and strap them to the bottom of the bag frames?

Gotta come up with a plumbing solution for that one.

*Rubber Padded Pipe Clamps are like this:

[Roady]

Oops.

[Fred Camper]

A turn down would help, but another option is a heat shield on the bottom of the trunk. You may fit a 6 inch by 8 inch metal plate on the bottom of the trunk and space it off the fiberglass by about 10 mm. This air gap between the metal and the trunk allows the plate to be cooled by airflow and prevents the heat of the plate from being conducted into the trunk. The trunk would run way cooler. The thickness of the metal plate is of practical concerns only, you need to have the material available to you. It needs to be stout enough metal so when you set the trunk down on the plate that the trunk still sits nice (for storage) and maintains an air gap between the metal and the trunk.

[Sagebrush]

I think you would be better served by going back to the headers and readjusting the adapters. Anything you try to add on to those mufflers to try and point the output in a different directions will just look, and probably work, like a kluge job. One you get used to those bags you're going to love them.

[Fred Camper]

Which of the two above options Roady chooses depends on how often the bags stay on. Dean mentions the best option for bags on all the time. I think my shield idea is perfect for bags that only go on for trips, ie a primarily naked Winnie. So is Winnie going to be naked most of the time or not???

BTW, a windshield does not dress a naked wing, as they are clear.