enjaymarine
New Member
Hi all,
I have an '04 XL883 Custom over here in Hong Kong, which has all the usual goodies attached (V&H, Big Sucker, Tacho, Mustang seat etc), including a nice set of Jardine Highway bars on the front.
Unfortunately, no-one seems to manufacture anything suitable in the way of rear Highway/Engine/crash bars, so I plan to design and do so here.
Looking at the back of my bike, we see the obvious attachment points on each side are the "spare" bolt in the centre of one's fender rail - between the rear upper shock mount and the turn signal - which is only there to reinforce your fender location. The bottom end is a little trickier, but if one removes the rear footpegs, leaving the pillion footpeg brackets in place, we have another strong area - which will probably break off cleanly in a fall, thus providing a good "Sacrificial" attachment point.
Material for the rear bars will be aviation-grade stainless steel tubing, 1.25" external diameter, with a suitable steel "slug" welded into each end before bending. This slug will be drilled & tapped to accept appropriately-sized mounting bolts. The upper end will extend approx 4" out from the fender rail, before bending approx 100 degrees & heading down to the rear bracket. This will angle the bars outwards slightly, matching the Jardine bars at the front. When level with the lower attachment point, we bend the tube 80 degrees inwards, giving us somewhere in the region of an 8" horizontal tube - which becomes our rear passenger footrest - before connecting to the rear brackets.
Simple, elegant, sturdy, yet suitably sacrificial should we suffer a spill.
So, comments please...
...And before I dig out pen,paper & protractor, if anyone out there has already done this and has spare drawings available, I'd like to see 'em.
Ride safe, keep the shiny bits skywards and the black bits on the ground.
Nick, :s
Hong Kong.
I have an '04 XL883 Custom over here in Hong Kong, which has all the usual goodies attached (V&H, Big Sucker, Tacho, Mustang seat etc), including a nice set of Jardine Highway bars on the front.
Unfortunately, no-one seems to manufacture anything suitable in the way of rear Highway/Engine/crash bars, so I plan to design and do so here.
Looking at the back of my bike, we see the obvious attachment points on each side are the "spare" bolt in the centre of one's fender rail - between the rear upper shock mount and the turn signal - which is only there to reinforce your fender location. The bottom end is a little trickier, but if one removes the rear footpegs, leaving the pillion footpeg brackets in place, we have another strong area - which will probably break off cleanly in a fall, thus providing a good "Sacrificial" attachment point.
Material for the rear bars will be aviation-grade stainless steel tubing, 1.25" external diameter, with a suitable steel "slug" welded into each end before bending. This slug will be drilled & tapped to accept appropriately-sized mounting bolts. The upper end will extend approx 4" out from the fender rail, before bending approx 100 degrees & heading down to the rear bracket. This will angle the bars outwards slightly, matching the Jardine bars at the front. When level with the lower attachment point, we bend the tube 80 degrees inwards, giving us somewhere in the region of an 8" horizontal tube - which becomes our rear passenger footrest - before connecting to the rear brackets.
Simple, elegant, sturdy, yet suitably sacrificial should we suffer a spill.
So, comments please...
...And before I dig out pen,paper & protractor, if anyone out there has already done this and has spare drawings available, I'd like to see 'em.
Ride safe, keep the shiny bits skywards and the black bits on the ground.
Nick, :s
Hong Kong.