Thanks for the poat on this subject. I was cleaning my rear wheel last night and noticed the bracket on the LHS was boken. I thought WTF and thought I'll look on the forum for help not realizing this is a common problem.
I ordered a set of replacements brackets from ebay. How long of a process is it replacing both sides. I just wanted to say Thanks for posting a fix for this factory defect.

Bob

 

Buy the bracket repair/reinforcement shown above, it is a real beefy part. I have been through several of the cheap factory ones as well.I even had some of the factory pieces with incorrect bend in them so when installed they were already under tension and doomed to fil. After the second one I started looking as to why, is there a mis-alignment or something ?so I loosened everything up and if the parts were not touching I adjusted them so they were. I did not want to use the bolts to suck them up together, so after a tweak here and a washer there all looked good to me, nothing under tension and down the road I go fat,dumb and happy. Several months later I find cracks again.On that bike I ended up making a small gussett and welded it in there, using some chrome paint to help hide the discolored areas. Now I found the repair/reinforcement bracket and I doubt it will ever break again.