I know how you feel, I debated about chopping my rear fender for two years and when I finally started to cut it I felt queezy & thought I was going to puke, but as soon as I was done it was like "why the hell did I wait so long?".

 

yeah im having trouble pulling the trigger on drilling away on my baby

 

If you drill it and mess it up....oh well....run without one. I ran my '04 without the upper or lower guard for eight years and had no problems. This was the second thing that I removed from my '12 "72".

 

yeah i guess not guard is the backup plan.
i didnt used to like it 'guardless', but its starting to grow on me

 

Dont be scared drill away. Like said b4 use some masking tape to cut down on paint chipping and draw oit your design 1st with a protractor to make sure u like where the holes are and get the spacing right, but if it does chip a can of krylon and a few coats you will never know it wasent factory. Anything can be fixed or replaced so if you screw it up go another direction with it. But dont be scared u ride a Harley man

 

"But dont be scared u ride a Harley man"

lol good point

 

For you people who run w/o the belt guard.... do you ever ride 2-up? I've been considering drilling or removing mine. Leaning towards drilling holes and chopping the curved part off the back... because my gf does ride w/me sometimes and I don't want her getting her pant leg caught or something...

Any feedback on this?

 

I dont run a guard on mine and we have not had an "incident" thus far. I think as long as she's not wearing bell bottoms or a very loose fitting ankle bracelet, you should be fine. heard a horrible story once that involved a little girl in the back seat of a car with a jumprope out the window, wont get into details but if you look for trouble chances are you will find it...

 

Cool, I appreciate the input.