As I posted in my Intro regarding the reason for me joining the Forum I was asked by a customer to Fab up some side panniers from existing top box and a used kit from a Suzuki Hayabusa.
I thought it might make an interesting Project to share so here goes.
First up is the Busa Panniers & Fitting Kit I had supplied to me, It was unfortunate I didn't get the Bike but that's my luck as I assumed the owner was reluctant to give it away
This is what I had to start with, Top Box and High Level Cans.
Customer wanted the Original Turn Signals leaving on so with that in mind I set about trying different positions for the Fitting kit to allow for Pillion footrest room and trying not to have the Side Boxes stick out the back any further than the rear most part of the Top Box.
Many attempts later and I found a suitable location and set about fitting the near side rack first.
The front & Rear Top fittings of the rack needed spacers making up and I use a seller on Greedybay who makes them to order for me.
Front x2 (1 either side)
60mm Long
20mm Dia
8mm Clearance hole through the center
Rear x2 (1 either side)
25mm Long
20mm Dia
8mm Clearance Hole through the center
Because the side arms are hollow tubes and I had drilled holes through to facilitate spacer mounting I needed to weld some spacers in to stop the tube crushing when the fittings were tightened up so these were also purchased from Greedybay man.
4 Pre powder coated (2 either side)
Sizes:-
18mm Long
14mm Dia
8mm Clearance Hole through the center.
Decided at this point the arms would need a bit of extra support due to the side kits added and potential loads through out their life.
These I made from simple 10mm round solid steel and welded in place, They can be seen in the finished kit pushing the oem indicators up slightly and that was not by design more luck but the customer was pleased they were pushing the indicators a tad further from the cans.
Support Green
Arms with spacers fitted Red
This got the top fixings sorted without having to adjust the Original locations on the Busa rack.
Time to attack the 2 lower fittings, I wanted to maintain the quick release fasteners from the original rack but where to mount them on the Bike was a puzzle.
I had the Busa light bar which I decided to mount across the lower mudguard with a plate inside for additional strength, I removed the light fitting brackets from the bar as they were not needed and it cleaned the bar up a tad.
I cut the rear lower mounting arm off the rack attached it to the bar and shortened it to fit the rack again then welded that in place.
Now the front lower mounting.
I removed the arm from the rack as that was totally the wrong angle and length to use, I had in the Busa parts a bracket which I found had a elongated hole just right for fitting on the end can mounting which also had the quick release I wanted use.
This is the lower front arm I removed then I cut of the end with the corresponding quick release (Red Arrow) from the removed piece.
I then Using some 10mm round 3mm wall section Tube welded it to the piece I just cut off and welded the other end to the rack.
Confident it was somewhere near right I removed the rack along with the side arms, I laid the 2 side arms atop of each other and drilled the holes straight through for the top fixing points ensuring they were exactly the same.
At this point the arms was drilled 14mm from the inner side only so I could push the spacers mentioned above (4 spacers in the picture) in and butted up to the inner side of the outer arm and welded in place, I wanted the spacers to sit proud by 2-3mm so the Nyloc nut had a good strong surface to tighten down on.
Bolted the arms, Top plate and Nearside rack back on and attacked the offside with the same results.
The offside was soon done and fitted to the arms and lower fitting points with Cases fitted to see how we looked, Not to shoddy
Now I needed to clean up my welds ready for the powder coating chap to do his Magic, I had a cuppa, Took a Photo and decided more cleaning was required so these are about 50% done
2 Weeks passed before the Rack was ready for collection in which time I'd decided I needed some LED turn signal strips which could be added to the finished article, Quick look on Amazon and decided these would fit the bill nicely at £9.99
Also thought it would finish the project off if I could fit some plastic caps to the hex head bolts and Nyloc nuts so got me a bag of 10mm's also off Amazon £2.69 for 20..
Rack collected and fitted to the Bike carefully
Warmed up the arms to adhere the LED strips, Ran the wires through some sheathing to make it look tidy and up under the tail piece of the Bike, I had already spurred off the indicator wires on the Bike to accept the new LED strips.Replaced the VTR indicator relay with a load dependent unit and everything lit up as it should.
Clicked the Cases and Top Box in place and it was finished.
I'll post some finished Pic's but I'm about done, Hope it helps someone one day, Somehow, For me I like Projects especially when the customer is pleased with the outcome.
Thanks for reading this
