Re: [St] Kappa Givi top box rack

[Brian Pitman <snowsurfer@xxxxxxxxxx>]

iPat,
 
I am a bit late coming to this item (I was on an extended motorcycle tour on my '93 Yamaha GTS from Ottawa, ON, Canada to Gunnison, CO, USA to attend the GTS 15th anniversary reunion - we actually had a couple fly in from Australia, but hey, that is another story!).
 
Back on topic, I had a good friend donate an older Givi Point E33 top box to me several months ago.  This week (before reading this top box thread), I decided to mount it up on my '06 Caspian Blue Triuph Sprint ST.  I had a long chat with my favourite parts guy at the local dealership on the best, cheapest means to attach the box to the tail of the bike (i.e. Givi vs Triumph) Unfortunately, no one there knew if a Givi mounting kit would work with the Triumph saddlebag rails, so since I had been given the top box for free, I decdied to go with the Triumph tail rack.  
It is interesting that after the fact, "almorjon" did pretty much the same on his ST.
 
Below is my reply to my friend Paul who donated the box.
 
I also have pix if anyone would like to see how clean the installation was (which is what impressed me the most).
Email me directly if you would like to see the installation (I have yet to set up a Flickr acct....).
 
Cheers,
 
Brian

 
As you can see from the pix, mounting the Givi top box was a success, finally!
 
The humourous twists and turns in the mounting operation are that once I decided to mount the box (even deciding upon which bike was an exercise in mental gymnastics), however , I decided on the ST for three good reasons; the ST has less carrying capacity since the bags are much smaller compared to the GTS', cosmetically, the black top box matches the black and blue of the Triumph much better than the Yamaha's burgundy red with light grey accents.  Finally, getting parts for a two year old bike was going to be easier than for a 15 yr old so I went to the Ottawa Goodtime Centre (OGC) and debated the merits of using the Triumph top rack or mounting a Givi with the parts guy.  Going in, I had a gut feeling that even if Givi made a mounting kit for a Sprint that the rails used to mount the Triumph bags would likely interfere with the Givi arms so I had kinda resigned myself to paying an extravagant amount for the Triumph part and then having to wait a
 month for the carrier pigeons to bring them across the Atlantic.  To my great surprise, when I went to the parts counter, they actually had the rack kit in stock!!!  Then, the bad news, it was ordered for another customer.  At that point I seized to opportunity to ask if I could at least see it to know how it would mate up with the Givi mounting plate you had given me.  As I was looking at the "kit," I noticed one of the parts (very similar to your Givi plate) was broken.  At this point the parts manager showed up and told me that he had ordered a complete new kit for the other customer and that if I wanted this kit, he would deduct the price of the broken plate and sell it to me now.  Well, talk about a no-brainer!  I saved $40 and had said rack in hand!!!
 
Well, once I arrived home, the fun started.  In the instructions, the rack simply bolts directly onto the handrail.  
Then all I had to do was attach the Givi plate to the rack.
 
Nylon plugs covers the four holes in the underside of the grabrail.  I managed to break two of the four nylon covers off in the hole.  I almost completely stripped the threads of those two holes trying to get the friggin' nylon bits out.   That took at least an hour.  Then I bolted up the rack.  Of course, I had to remove the hand rail since there is not enough room between the bottom of the rail and the tail piece plastic to get hands and tools in there.  Once the rack was mounted on the bike, I had the joy of joining the Givi plate to the rack.  Well, the Givi hardware was pretty "adaptable" ... but not enough!  I used a few pieces but had to fabricate a few more.  The big time consumer (another hour) was grinding down a couple of large washers to fit into the "honeycomb" net under the cover on the top side of the plastic mounting plate.  Anyway, when all was said and done, it was a rather tidy installation and I now have storage for a full
 face helmet.


----- Original Message ----
From: iPat pmdavies@xxxxxxxxx

Does anyone have a Kappa Givi top box rack in combination with the
Triumph panniers? Is there a clash of supports?
http://www.triumphparts.gbr.cc/10442/info.php?p=2&pno=0&pid=1196057&cat=34952&ack=9&search=&sought=
_______________________________________________
Triumph Sprint ST/RS mailing list
Send list posts to ST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Change your list options at www.Triumphnet.com