Custom fender issues

[poorman9]

Hey guys it's me again, it's been a while, but I'm finally back at it.

It's time to fix me stupid fender. It's a 6.5" trailer fender that I chopped down and drilled some holes in, I don't really mind how it ended up looking. The problem is that over the course of a few weeks of riding (last summer) that fender vibrated so hard that it blew the bulb on the tail light, snapped off the plastic blinkers that I had attached to it, it even started shearing my license plate off at the mounting bolts

I've since upgraded the signals, and added some rubber grommets between the fender and the steel strap that it's bolted to. This definitely helped some, but it still vibrated the bulbs loose on my blinkers and tail light.

Here's what I'm planning:
Switch my license plate mount to this style.
Switch to this style brake/tail light.
After these changes I'll need to buy a new fender since I'll have mismatched holes in this one, which will give me an opportunity to do a better job mounting it.

Any idea's how I could do a better than this? Do you any of you have photos of they way your fenders mounted?

 

[justinbbq]

Been following your posts for awhile, man (big time lurker, nice to meet you), and I have to say -- HUGE fan of your ride! I have the same year XS, and have been tinkering for the last year 1/2 trying to get it to [seriously] almost exactly the same as yours. Been trying to mock your fender/seat for the last couple months. Did you do the pan/upholstering/etc all yourself? Any tips or hints?

Thx again, dude! If you're ever up in Seattle (or feel like making a ride to... well, ride more), let me know!

Cheers,
J

 

[bbillington]

a ratty stock fender that's been bobbed towards the front. The holes in the fender that the stock signals bolt to are utilized to mount to the rubber nubs on the frame. You have to work the fender in slightly to narrow it, but once they're in there, it doesn't move and really helps with vibration. The LED tail/brake/blinkers are mounted off the top shock mounts with some spares i had laying around. HTH

 

[grepper]

Here's what I'm planning:
Switch my license plate mount to this style.

Good luck with that. I had a similar style on my bobber. Came home one day after a short ride and all I had with a nub of a bracket attached to my axle. I re-traced my ride and found my license plate and the rest of the bracket in the road, after been run over several times. Mine was the heavy steel kind of mount, something thinner and more flexible might of held up better.

 

[poorman9]

Been following your posts for awhile, man (big time lurker, nice to meet you), and I have to say -- HUGE fan of your ride! I have the same year XS, and have been tinkering for the last year 1/2 trying to get it to [seriously] almost exactly the same as yours. Been trying to mock your fender/seat for the last couple months. Did you do the pan/upholstering/etc all yourself? Any tips or hints?

Thx again, dude! If you're ever up in Seattle (or feel like making a ride to... well, ride more), let me know!

Cheers,
J

Hey man thanks for the kind words, hope this helps -

Some info about my seat:

I made seat pan to fit nice and tight to my custom frame loop, then brought the pan and a couple reference photos to a place here in Portland called Rob's Upholstery. About a week later he had it all finished up for me.

Here's a photo of my cardboard seat pan mock up:

And this is the photo I brought to the upholsterer as reference. Apparently it's a seat made by Japanese company called Nitroheads:

 

[jamesgs4]

if you don't hang any lights on the new fender, just rubber mount it and it should be fine. Attach it with at least 2 points along the curve.

 

[TeeCat]

Interestingly, my rear fender was hard-mounted (bolts, no rubber dampening) when I got the bike, and that's how I have kept it (though I had re-mounted the fender more neatly). I recently bobbed the fender out of necessity, and that itself should help with vibration, along with a heavier tail light/tag bracket assembly. I mention this because hard-mounting the fender seems to have reduced vibration rather than contributed to it, but time will tell.

TC

 

[retiredgentleman]

All I can say guys, is rubber mount everything on these bikes. This is an XS650...............world renowned for its superior vibrating qualities.

There's a reason Yamaha engineers used rubber mounting for most of the parts on the bike.

 

[OakBehringer]

Get an LED tail light. It will no longer die from the vibs.