DIY rear rack for my 05GS500F.

[lilwoody]

i know this is going to ramble and it may sound confusing but it the best discripyion I can give. I never was good at transposing precise measurments onto anything and have it line up so alot of the work wasdone by eye and fitting. I sure I'll get flamed by someone but have at it. I'm  very pleased with how it came out.
Well I decided to give making a back rack for my 05 500F. I had looked at some of the links on here and some of the rack projects on here and decided tro give it a try myself. Mine didn't follow any of the general ways racks were made for these bikes.
I started by taking the rear faring off and seeing just how I could get it to mount and decided to replace the rear grab bar with the rack frame. I made the frame out of a 4 foot piece of 1/2" sch. 40 stainless steel pipe. I bent the pipe in a vice with a acetalene tourch and a 2 foot piece of 2" pipe. I bent it  into a 11 1/2 x 11 inch rectangle and did all the bends by eye witht the help of a square and believe it or not it came out very near perfect. I trimmed the excess off when iI got it about 10 degrees from completing the rectangle. I then finished off the rectangle and heated the side where the ends net up with a 3 pound hand sledge.
Then it was time for the supports and I had decided to come out of the small tubes that run along the rear of the frame (see pic, I'm not sure how to properly describe them) with 12 ga, 1/4" steel ridged tube. I turned down 1 i/4" of the tube about 1/2 a mm to get it to fit and it made a stop the will keep the steel tube from slipping down the frame tube.
After fitting the tubes I took the rear faring off and bolted the rack frame in and measured where I wanted the bend to meet up with the rack frame. I bent it the same way I did the frame but with a smaller pipe for the bending tool. After I got one to mate upto the rack frame and cut to fit I put it in the vice and used it as a visual templet for the other.
I then drilled 1/4" holes through the bottom side of the rack frame rack frame and scored the top side to give the dowels a good seat whe inserted. Then I cut cut 2" peices of aluminium dowl and fit it all together to make sure it all lined up. I did and was very sturdy. I was pleased.
I then started with the platform. I was just going to use unistrut and mount a hard case but nixed that in favor of of a aluminimum sheet mounted with rubber gromets. I figured a flat rack would be more useful than one with just a hard case on it. I cut a peice of 8 or 10 gauge (not sure because it was scrap in the bone pile at the plant). I decided on 14"x14" and drilled the 8 1/4" mounting holes a little fat from 2 3/4" apart in the frome and ten used the frame as a templet for the holes in the plate.
I then got 8, 1"stoppers  and drilled 3/8"holes through then and used 5x 1/4" carrage bolts to mount the plate. To make the plate match the contour of the seat I cut the ones in the back in half and cut 1/4 of the ones in the middle off. T then used a fender washer and a nut to draw the carrage bolts into the plate. This was a mistake as they didn't want to go through all the holes so to mount the plate I had to tap the out and mate them upone at a time but it was no big deal.
Once every thing lined up I took it apart and painted it with black hammered Rustolem. I them re assemblem everyt thing on the biketrimmed the bolts dowm and touched everything up with paint.

[img]http://i know this is going to ramble and it may sound confusing but it the best discripyion I can give. I never was good at transposing precise measurments onto anything and have it line up so alot of the work wasdone by eye and fitting. I sure I'll get flamed by someone but have at it. I'm  very pleased with how it came out.
Well I decided to give making a back rack for my 05 500F. I had looked at some of the links on here and some of the rack projects on here and decided tro give it a try myself. Mine didn't follow any of the general ways racks were made for these bikes.
I started by taking the rear faring off and seeing just how I could get it to mount and decided to replace the rear grab bar with the rack frame. I made the frame out of a 4 foot piece of 1/2" sch. 40 stainless steel pipe. I bent the pipe in a vice with a acetalene tourch and a 2 foot piece of 2" pipe. I bent it  into a 11 1/2 x 11 inch rectangle and did all the bends by eye witht the help of a square and believe it or not it came out very near perfect. I trimmed the excess off when iI got it about 10 degrees from completing the rectangle. I then finished off the rectangle and heated the side where the ends net up with a 3 pound hand sledge.
Then it was time for the supports and I had decided to come out of the small tubes that run along the rear of the frame (see pic, I'm not sure how to properly describe them) with 12 ga, 1/4" steel ridged tube. I turned down 1 i/4" of the tube about 1/2 a mm to get it to fit and it made a stop the will keep the steel tube from slipping down the frame tube.
After fitting the tubes I took the rear faring off and bolted the rack frame in and measured where I wanted the bend to meet up with the rack frame. I bent it the same way I did the frame but with a smaller pipe for the bending tool. After I got one to mate upto the rack frame and cut to fit I put it in the vice and used it as a visual templet for the other.
I then drilled 1/4" holes through the bottom side of the rack frame rack frame and scored the top side to give the dowels a good seat whe inserted. Then I cut cut 2" peices of aluminium dowl and fit it all together to make sure it all lined up. I did and was very sturdy. I was pleased.
I then started with the platform. I was just going to use unistrut and mount a hard case but nixed that in favor of of a aluminimum sheet mounted with rubber gromets. I figured a flat rack would be more useful than one with just a hard case on it. I cut a peice of 8 or 10 gauge (not sure because it was scrap in the bone pile at the plant). I decided on 14"x14" and drilled the 8 1/4" mounting holes a little fat from 2 3/4" apart in the frome and ten used the frame as a templet for the holes in the plate.
I then got 8, 1"stoppers  and drilled 3/8"holes through then and used 5x 1/4" carrage bolts to mount the plate. To make the plate match the contour of the seat I cut the ones in the back in half and cut 1/4 of the ones in the middle off. T then used a fender washer and a nut to draw the carrage bolts into the plate. This was a mistake as they didn't want to go through all the holes so to mount the plate I had to tap the out and mate them upone at a time but it was no big deal.
Once every thing lined up I took it apart and painted it with black hammered Rustolem. I them re assemblem everyt thing on the biketrimmed the bolts dowm and touched everything up with paint.
All the parts before paint
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y299/liloody/DSCN0775.jpg
Second fitting of frsme and supports
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y299/liloody/DSCN0782.jpg
Done and on bike....
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y299/liloody/DSCN0782.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y299/liloody/DSCN0788.jpg
The site doesn't seem to want to accept pictures now from phoyobucket. The links from Photobucket works fine on other sites so I just posted links.

[ohgood]

fixed the pics: