Location of pannier brackets

Ok, I would like your views on how I’m planning to fit pannier brackets for my new heavy duty panniers, with the head scratcher being the fact I already have a sissy bar hung off the fender bolts. Viewed from above it currently looks like this:



As you can see on the M800 the chrome fender rail is quite curved,so after fitting the fender bolts you get quite a gap between the sissy bar and the fender rail. Previously I’d packed this out with washers...

I’ve got 2 sets of pannier brackets to play with... (one lot came with the bags, the others were scrounged off the excellent Mr Sim). They are almost identical and look like this:



Option 1: fit extra long fender bolts, and mount the pannier brackets outside of sissy bar... the lugs are 30mm, and with extra wide bags, the whole thing would be quite wide.

Option 2: chop the lugs down to about 15mm... squeeze pannier bracket between the sissy bar and the fender rail, so it acts as a packer too instead of the washers. Wouldnt stick out as far (which is good) and may look neater.

I'm favouring option 2.... do you guys reckon this would be OK?

By the  way, I want the bags to be easily removeable, so dont want to bolt through them with the fender bolt. Instead I’m thinking of drilling a couple of holes in the sissy bar rail, then bolting the bag to it with either a quick release knurled nut or R pin... 


I’m also going to fashion some find of spring clip to locate the bottom of the bag against the bottom on the pannier bracket.

   Just found an earlier post with Sim's ideas on demountable bags...

LINK

Now that's really smart!


To all those mechanical wizzos who have reversed the fender bolts, when drilling out the front retaining nut did you leave the drilled out nut in situ afterwards, or grind it off.? Not long before my hols.... fancy doing this, but don't want to start buggering around taking back wheel off to get in with an angle grinder!!

More options the better Mal, good work & write up.  

Option 2 sounds good Mal, I just drilled through the front nut and left it in place Mal  

Excellent, thanks sim, I'll give that a go...

This is my fastening Mal, it's the Klic-bag system, it does make it a wide load, using longer bolts!

Thanks Dave that's helpful.

Hmmm.. Option 2 rejected. Despite careful angle grinding, the lugs aren't  bang on square, so brackets sandwiched between sissy bar and fender rails aren't sitting right. 

Think I'll order proper spacers to bridge the gap, and sit brackets on outside :(

Oh well, I'm not a big fan of filtering anyway, so doesn't matter if the bike with bags is 4 foot wide!!

Hi Mal don't forget to get (Wide Load) stickers for your panniers.

Thanks... Actually come to think of it I've already got one sewn on the arse of my jeans