what happens when this thing breaks ? is the tour pak lid going to come all the over and hit the fender ? not sure i'm liking this so much. anyone ever have one break ?
It's happened to Ultras. I put a small tether chain on mine along with the stock one. Friend of mine had his pulled over by the wind, tether broke, and 'lip' where the hinges attached broke. New Tourpack!
My tether broke and the lid went right over but nothing broke i think because the first thing i did when i bought my bike was change the hinges. They are much stronger
I added one of those brass folded chains as a backup, kinda like Screwball did. Pretty easy, I'll post some pics when we get back to Ohier from Alabama (through what looks like three days of driving rain. Wonderful.)
I drilled holes pretty much centered on the lid behind the (removed) seat back, and on the bottom centered about an inch and a quarter down from the edge. Then I used two fender washers with 3 layers of black electricians tape on their inward side for padding, and a #10 stainless flat head screw and nuts to secure the ends of the chain. Kind of like this:
It's has just a little slack when the stock tether, which remains, is at full extension.
Prevents overtravel, doesn't tangle or hang up with anything, and has worked well in the first 1500 miles of our trip, no issues whatsoever.
I'll take more pics when I get home.
Hope this helps someone.
Edit: oh, yeah lots of blue Locktite.
Edit2: The stuff is fairly flexible without much loss of strength, so to open the openings big enough for the screw to go through, I just used a tapered drift through them on a partially open vice. Neither one interferes with the seat back, there's clearance there. The fender washers on the inside are larger diameter than on the outside, well, because that's what I had. Also, being centered lets the chain hang down into the tour pack when closing it, so it never gets in the way of closing. I thought I might have to space out the top further into the pack with some extra washers for that, but it wasn't needed.
All that, and later when I have time I'm going to reinforce the inside of the hinge area where the screw heads are with some metal strap and some JB Weld to spread the stress out over more surface area. Occasionally we had to open the tour pack with a 20 pound duffel bag still on the lid; and although I held it carefully while the wife put stuff in and out, I could feel it trying to flex a little. That way if anything happens it'll at least have a chance not to tear the hinges out of the top or the bottom.
Missionwop, where did you get the stronger hinges?
Last edited by Oogie Wa Wa; 10-26-2015 at 06:57 AM.
Reason: mo stuff
Just happened to my buddies new to him 2015 Ultra. Flipped open 180 degrees till it hit the bottom of the tour pak then ripped the hinges out of the lid and the lid went down to the ground. He was not happy.
10-23-2015, 06:22 PM
