Loose, sloppy fitting hard bags, FIX.

[Erik Miner <Axeis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Time for a new thread, by now we all have figured out how to make our 
brakes less mushy :-)

OK a while back there was discussion on how the hard bags on the ST 
start getting sloppy. There was all kinds of talk of putting stuff on 
the rails tying the bags together etc. Anyway I was fiddling with 
mine to night and this is what I found and what I did to fix them. I 
found that most of the movement, or slop is at the point where the 
bag slides into the front mount where the lock and clasp are and that 
general area. I've now about them a good 90% as snug as when new and 
first installed.

First thing I found was that the latch on the lock was very sloppy. 
If you open the lock ( down by the foot peg) you'll see that there is 
a sort of hook that when one closes the lock grabs a matching part of 
the bag and pulls in snug. Well it seems that over time that piece 
had bent itself more open so it wasn't grabbing the bag part as 
firmly as it should. The fix is remove the latch assembly (there are 
three acorn nuts on the back holding it on) take the piece and, (I 
did this on a piece of press board, back side down)  bend the hook 
in, I used a hammer just a couple of small wacks on the hook. Yes I 
know wacks isn't really exact maybe bent it it about 2-3mm. On 
reinstalling there was 50% less slop. Then I noticed that the other 
place causing slop was the bracket that connects the passenger foot 
peg to the same bracket that the lock assembly is on. Now this 
bracket has rubber bushing at one end so that it can flex a bit but 
it was flexing too much allowing the bag to move around too much. 
Simple fix here is just remove the two bolts that secure the back end 
of the bracket to the part with the lock and although it's a pretty 
thick piece of steel just grab it and bend it out a bit towards 
yourself, again not much just a bit. Now put it all back and ta-da, 
no slop!  I belive that the bracket over time gets pushed in a bit 
just from wear and tear. opening the bags taking them off etc. If 
anyone doesn't under stand any of this just ask.. I could take 
pictures but if you have an ST with bags you'll prolly be able to 
figure this one out without too much technical assistance :-)

  The last thing I'll probably do is to fit some type of fail-safe pin 
lock. If you look right above the key hole you'll see the back of 
three studs . I'm thinking of drilling a hole right through there, 
bracket and bag so that I can slide in a latch pin or something so 
that even if the lock/hasp fails the bag couldn't slide up/ back and 
off.. Opinions??

Erik

 

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