luggage rack repair

Next day with nowhere to go we just slept in and did much needed tasks like laundry, and mailing another box of crap, I mean souvenirs home.   Cece’s aunt and Uncle showed us around the nice little town of Lake Stevens and gave us some ideas of what to do around the area.

First though, another bike repair..  Over the two weeks we had been on the road my tour pack had begun to sag more and more in the back to where it was getting hard to read the license plate, but more importantly it was creating a growing lump in the bottom of the bag and taking away valuable space.  My luggage rack did not go all the way to the end of the bag and over time the vibrations and bumps and 120lbs+ of weight had caused the thing to sag.

Took the thing off and much to my surprise it had bent the whole luggage rack down too.  See in the pics how the Custom World International rack is all one solid piece with the sides bent down, it had bent straight across there where the sides end.  I didnt think to get a picture of how badly bent it was.    I had Rusty hold the bars to keep it from falling and picked the whole back of the bike up by the end of the rack.  With the rear tire off the ground I could shake it up and down a little and it’d slowly bend back a millimeter at a time.  That thing is fricken thick, it took a lot of effort to bend it back straight.  Luckily it seems to have only stretched the chrome a bit and didnt crack it.

With it mostly straight I cut a piece cut a piece of this stuff from Lowes in half and wired it to each side with a strip of pizza box on both sides and on the top between the metal and the rack to keep from scratching it too badly.

With a little bit of cowhand fencing knowhow the improved rack was now longer and the arms were rock sollid. I’m impressed at how well it turned out.  Doesnt look pretty but a huge bag will be covering most of it anyway.