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Homemade Luggage Rack

Spaggy

Spaggy

Member
Joined
Oct 19, 2014
Messages
186
Location
Canada
I made the mistake of putting something on the stock plastic crappy rack and it broke off. Altrider rack is $318 in Canada so not happening f@ck you very much Altrider. First I tried a wooden one because I can't weld aluminum and thought it would be worth a try. It worked really well and was solid but I couldn't get onboard (pun intended) with wood.



I decide to put the rear seat back on and had trouble getting along with the back rest so aluminum was back in play. I made one for around $80, $65 of that was powder coating. All hand tools except for using my miter saw to cut the aluminum. Miter saw worked amazingly well btw. And no welding.





 
Dogdaze

Dogdaze

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 17, 2014
Messages
3,040
Location
Solothurn, Switzerland
That's a decent rack, I personally will not bother with powdercoating so will save myself a few $$, I was trying to figure out how to bend the sides down, but your idea works. Winter project ::008::
 
RCinNC

RCinNC

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Joined
Aug 30, 2014
Messages
2,891
Location
North Carolina
LOL, that's kind of disappointing; I was amazed when yours came out so close to the design of mine, so I was hoping there would be some totally cool metaphysical reason for it.

You did a nice job on yours. I had to recess those three bolts up front so my top case would sit flush on the rack.
 
M

MotoMachines

Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2013
Messages
72
Location
Sterling, VA
RCinNC said:
LOL, that's kind of disappointing; I was amazed when yours came out so close to the design of mine, so I was hoping there would be some totally cool metaphysical reason for it.

You did a nice job on yours. I had to recess those three bolts up front so my top case would sit flush on the rack.
Click to expand...
Not that it matters now, and it may be a bit tricky to get the rack holes to be completely level, but using a countersunk bolt helps, see below. You can create a symmetrical indent on the rack and use these to create a flush connection without having to raise the rack.



 
RCinNC

RCinNC

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 30, 2014
Messages
2,891
Location
North Carolina
The problem with using a countersunk bolt on those three big bolts at the front of the rack was that I couldn't find any that size, so I had to use the OEM roundhead ones. If you look at my rack, you'll see that the three front bolts are in a recessed plate that sits below the level of the rest of the rack, which allows me to use both the OEM bolts and to have a flush mounting surface for my top case.
 
Spaggy

Spaggy

Member
Joined
Oct 19, 2014
Messages
186
Location
Canada
RCinNC said:
The problem with using a countersunk bolt on those three big bolts at the front of the rack was that I couldn't find any that size, so I had to use the OEM roundhead ones. If you look at my rack, you'll see that the three front bolts are in a recessed plate that sits below the level of the rest of the rack, which allows me to use both the OEM bolts and to have a flush mounting surface for my top case.
Click to expand...
I agree about hard to find metric bolts. Even in Canada where we've been metric since '78 or so, the local bolt supply place has a scant few available. That was a problem for me and the 4th bolt at the back. Needed a long round head bolt and it wasn't available. So I stacked some nuts on a bolt and welded them together to create a coupling nut (also not available in metric). Then bolted it with a short one from the bottom and uses the oem one through the top. This pic shows the shorter one underneath holding the coupling nut.

 
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