Now I only very recently fitted a new tailpiece puzzled together from leftover XS400 parts to my everyday TR1 and honestly I wasn't quite happy about it. One of the key elements that bugged me was that it was almost as flimsy as the old SR500 rear mudguard I had used before.
Quite a while ago, I had bought a 160mm zincplated trailer mudguard with two bevelled edges (copy cats beware, there's some which are meant to be fixed directly to the sidewall of your trailer and thus have one FLAT side. They are obviously no use on a bike unless you really want to go all funky.)
So what I did was to measure the width inside the rear subframe, split that in half and come up with two aluminium bushings to center the mudguard in the frame. (Only to realise the error of my ways and then notch them on the mill, because the holes were drill to low and they touched the lip of the mudguard...)
Next was to dig out an old tail-light holder and see how it would fit to the rear end of the bike.
Shifting it up and down (you know how this goes) until I was happy with the position.
Now the other thing that always annoyed me with both the SR500 and the XS400 mudguards on the TR1 was that they both were horribly flimsy, because of their two-part design. So I sliced this one on each side, tilted it up and welded in a little triangle on the side. The primer gratiously hiding the welds as the zinc-plated steel wasn't exactly a joy to weld to put it mildly.
While I was at it, I picked up some so called "Streetbar High" bars. They sport the same pullback as my old dragbar, but are 70mm higher and so reducing the strain on both my wrists and neck substantially.
On the right you can see the finished product. I haven't employed some additional holding strap to the front of the mudguard yet, because the notched bushings actually hold it in place with ease.
(But I have to get some thin stainless material to make this look and work properly!)
No comments:
Post a Comment