Reply With QuoteWow looks surprisingly good, nice work. I can't wait to see pics with it all together.
On June 25th I leave for a 16 day 6,000 mile adventure on my 2007 XB12S. I wanted hard panniers for the bike to help prevent theft, keep out weather, and increase storage. I wasn't happy with the price and long term reviews of the Hepco Becker OEM style cases for the X's. Even more important, I rode an S with the 31L panniers on and felt that they crowded the room in the cockpit - my heels hit them and my thighs sometimes rested on them. So I've tried something different.
Best case scenario is I come back in one piece with a sore back on my Buell. Worst case is I swing into a BMW dealership along the way and get a new bike. Either way it will be a great trip with some good friends.
There's not much information on panniers for the S series of bikes so I figured I'd post up what I had. My intent is to leave them on for trips, and take them off (along with the frames) for everyday riding. Here are the pictures;
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I ordered the rack through Adventure Moto Stuff in Nevada.
http://www.amotostuff.com/
They are one of only 2 dealers in the US for HB products. The rack is not listed on their site, you need to call and special request it. It took 11 weeks to get it shipped to me directly from Germany. I'm not sure where the breakdown was with this, but because they quoted me 5 weeks they knocked 75.00 off the price so they came in at 395.00.
Install was painless and took about 30 min. All of the directions are in German, but the pictures are self explanatory and easy to follow. They do mount up with the Ventura rack. For this I kept the Ventura hardware (long bolts at the passenger pegs area). I also had to leave the upper support un bolted and lift up on it so I could get the last mounting bolt in for the HB rack. Once the last HB rack bolt was in I was able to tighten up the Ventura rack.
The lateral black bar that runs along the tail piece stays on when the rack is off. I'm not super happy with the look of the relocated turn signals on this piece, so I may choose to do something else in the long run. What, I'm not sure and it will have to wait until I get back. Included with the rack are plug-n-play extensions for your turn signals. I did have to re-wire the lic. plate light as it tore out of it's mount when I was trying to stuff the extensions through the rubber grommet. This was probably user error.
Once the rack was on, I took it back off just to see how long it would take - 10 min. This is accomplished first by loosening the Ventura rack top mount bolts and then the HB bolts. All of the big chrome bolts pictured are spring loaded 1/2 turn. So you literally turn a few bolts and take the entire thing off.
The panniers I went with are made by Muffin Top Industries.
http://www.muffintopindustries.com/
I ordered them custom sized to be the same dimensions as the HB Junior Flash that would normally go on the bike. Total cost for this was 310.00 with powder coating and shipping. Prices are reduced when dealing with these guys if you're not in a hurry and tell them so up front. Since it took 3 months to get the rack in, I was in no hurry. There are some good reviews on these panniers at ADVrider.com.
I'll mount them as far back as possible using Happy Trails pucks and drilling my own holes in the panniers. I'll post up a few more pictures when this is done.
Wow looks surprisingly good, nice work. I can't wait to see pics with it all together.
I tried to get a set of those racks off craigslist but the guy wouldnt ship them. I think he was in new york. Btw you goin 6000 miles on that seat? ouch!
I thought about doing something similar with a set of 25mm or 50cal ammo cans for my STT just for riding around here.
Gl with the ride!!
Looking forward to the pics once you get the mounts sorted.
Edit: I misquoted the price of the racks above. The MSRP was $395.00 and because of the manufacture/shipping delay $75.00 was knocked off bringing them in at $320.00. Shipping on anything over $150.00 was free (promo deal) and they were drop-shipped directly to me from Germany.
Ordered up the mounting pucks from Happy-Trails.com. The customer support here was great, all their products are made in the USA, and they took a lot of time to walk me thru the mounting process. Good company that I would highly recommend. The kit was $50.00 that came with everything you see here. The extra bolts are to mount the panniers w/o the hand crank knobs on the inside.
I mocked up 3 different angles for the panniers - level, slight tilt, and moderate tilt. In the end, I decided to go with the moderate tilt. When they were mounted level everything looked off, and at the slight tilt the difference between the top of the pannier and the angle of the sub-frame looked odd. It looks different, but will probably take some getting used to.
I was too impatient to wait for my buddy to get off of work to help me get these things mounted. I ended up making a template out of cardboard, drilled holes in it and mounted it. Then I taped the cardboard template to the pannier and drilled my holes. Worked right the first time.
Lots of room to move my feet around which was the end goal.
The only thing I'm not super happy with is the directionals are not visible from the side. The only vix I could think of was wiring lights drilled into the back/side of the panniers. That's too much work and I really don't think it will be that big of a deal.
looks good!
Do you want to sell your 5-0dro pulley plate, the plate that covers the pulley NOT the whole cover.
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