Sw Motech Panniers Rails & Honda Top Box

[londonbubble]

hi Dave

I had the same problem with the crush nuts syndrome i put my top box back ad it over hangs with just four fixing bolts holding it on.

The top box did look flimsy and bounced around like a good un. But i rode to the northcap and then down through Finland done the Baltic states, Poland,and blighty via Germany and Holland etc and it stayed on the bike with no probs. In the top box i had a tent that wieghed about 9lbs, two compact sleeping bags,mallet and tent pegs and various items of clothing, fleeces etc. On top of the box i screwed on some fixing rings and attatched my two self inflating floor mats, and some times i had litre bootles of pop tucked under the straps, oh! and a kellys kettle and two cups were hanging off the back handle good measure. I dropped the bike about three times, and rode six thousand miles in total and managed to get over 100mph out of the old girl(with pillion). The box and rack have never showed any signs of stress, and they stayed on the back all the way and are still on there.

Buy all means strngthen the rack, but don't let the wobble put you off

My tuppence worth

[modrover]

I've been fitting my SW Motech Pannier rails and the panniers.
I've run in to a problem with my Honda Topbox. I have the big jobbie, 55 litres I think.
It basically won't quite fit with my panniers on.
Some pics to illustrate are at the bottom.
I need to move my topbox up and backwards a bit.
I'd wanted to move my topbox backwards anyway as I could then fit a full size pillion on without squashing my nuts against the tank.
To do this I think I need something underneath the plate that the topbox fixes to. Although it needs to be reasonably substantial.
So I'm looking for a piece of aluminium tubing that's about 1.5 inches square and a foot long.
Anyone any ideas where I might get that from, and am I going the right way about this?

Dave,

You're dead-on when you say AL. Use AL stock and you'll be very happy for a long time with it. It appears the best thing for you might be solid bar stock. In my country you can purchase this from the better hardware stores, but any local metal fab shop should have a bucket of scraps you could buy from as well. Here's a photo of my Transalp AL rack I made. I also used some solid tube stock that I cut/drilled for spacers to mount my Transalp GIVI plate. I only needed to get my top box a bit higher so I didn't use a solid full length bar stock to move it back.

[DaveS]

Thanks London bubble and Michael.

I would get away with just the 4 bolts but I need to raise it as well. It still catches so I think I have to go with the alu solution that Michael says.
His looks really cool.

The worst case scenerio is that I can't use the top box with the panniers so its not the end of the world. Just waiting for Paul Cave to reply to me as he may have some other ideas.

[reme59]

ive got a lenght of 50mm box section if you want it.. its 4ft .6in long just pay the postage and its yours reme 59

[DaveS]

I've PM'd you.