Hard Mounting soft saddle bags

Well ladies and gents, I just finished a pretty easy mod. I took my soft, cheap saddle bags, and hard mounted them (they had a strap connecting the two over the fender before). Here's what I did:

I bought a inch square tube of aluminum, 4 5/16 fender washers, and some new bolts that were 80mm long (2 10x1.25x80, 2 8x1.25x70). You will also need some black (or whatever) spray paint and some drill bits.

First I removed my seat, saddlebags, sissy bar, luggage rack, and rear fender. Then I cut a foot long piece of square tubing. I laid the tubing against the chrome frame and marked where the center of the holes should be. (Note that the two holes are different sizes). I then drilled out the holes on both sides of the tubing. (I'm an engineer, and so I'm kind of anal about stuff. I actually measured where the centers where, and measured out and center punched each side of the tubing. I then drilled each hole out with the appropriate drill bit. I fabbed a second piece of tubing using the same measurements as the first one.

Next I painted both tubing pieces flat black.

Once the paint was dry, I was ready to mount the saddle bags. NOTE: MY BAGS ALREADY HAD A MOD FROM THE PREVIOUS OWNER. HE HAD LINED THE BOTTOM AND BACK OF THE BAGS WITH 1/4 INCH PLYWOOD. I held the bags up to the side of the bike, and eye-balled where the square tubing peices should line up. I then laid the square tubing on the back of the saddle bag in that location, and drilled through the plywood, using the square tubing as a template.

Once this was done, I put the sissy bar/luggage rack back on by fastening the back most bolts into the fender. HINT: To hold the fender in place, you can use a #2 phillips screwdriver and just push it through the holes. This keeps the fender up where it needs to be and lets you work one side at a time very easily.

The next part was the hardest. I put a washer on each new bolt, and slid the new bolts w/washer through the saddlebag from the inside. Then I attached the saddlebag. This takes some patience, and perseverance, but it can be done. I then repeated it for the other side.

It looks pretty good. I'm pretty stoked at how solid the bags feel now. I'll try to get some pictures and show y'all exactly what I did. It was a pretty easy mod and was really cheap. I think it cost me around 15 bucks and 12 of that was the aluminum tubing. Got the bike back together now, and I'm ready to hit the road tomorrow morning. Woo Hoo!!

texastim,

Sounds like a good mod.....post some pics of what you have done. It would help others to see how your mod looks and give them incentive to try it.


Thanks.......................bobby

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