| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Build Your Own Luggage Rack

Page history last edited by Kevin 15 years, 2 months ago

Customizing is one of the most popular features of motorcycling and you don't have to be

an engineer to design some of your own parts. If you can turn a wrench

and cut some posterboard, you can get a local shop to do the hard part for ya.

 

Start with figuring out how you want the rack to mount to the bike. The two best places are the sissy bar mounting bolts or the rear fender stay bolts. This example will show the making of a pattern to mount to the fender stay bolts.

 

Get a couple sheets of poster board, masking tape and some good scissors. Measure the distance between the fender stays where the sissy bar mounts. You will need this measurement later. Remove the rear fender stays and place them on the poster board.

 

 

Trace around the fender stays with a pen or good pencil and cut the pieces out. Use the fender stays

to determine where to make bolts holes and make the holes in the paper.

 

 

Once you have these pieces, you need to cut a piece to become the top of the luggage rack. Use the measurement you

obtained earlier to determine how wide the top of the rack should be (shorten that distance by 1/4 inch to allow room between

the sissy bar and the rack). Fold the poster board on both sides at this distance, leaving at least an inch folded over.

 

 

When making the top, speed was my deciding factor for this tutorial and I chose a plain platform. A little imagination could

take your rack even further in the custom world. Feel free to draw designs in and cut out pieces. This will lighten the end

product and give it style.

 

Put the fender stays back on the bike with the new paper copies in place behind them.

Using a level, get an idea of where the top of the rack needs to be in relation to the rack mounts now attached behind the

fender stays. Use the masking tape to hold the pieces in place. (make sure that you have the pieces secured together... you don't want them shifting from your garage to the shop). Now you should have a paper version of your luggage rack.

 

 

You are fully armed to get your rack formed in metal.

 

If you can find a metal shop in your area, you can walk in with your new paper rack. Ask them to cut and fold a piece of steel to match. Depending on the detail in your pattern, the costs should stay low. The more work you can do at home on the work bench, the more money you can keep in your pocket.

 

*note* when you go to the shop, make sure that you have the measurement between the fender stays (this is the area that the luggage rack will need to fit in) you will need to make sure that the shop knows that the final product should not be wider than this.

 

This is just an example designed to get your mind working. Experiment with it and come up with your own rack.

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.