Rear fender cutting: "relocate" or "cut the tail off"?

[CoconutPete]

I want to remove between 4.25" and 5" from the rear fender.

Based on my vision and other people's ideas, there's 2 ways to do it.

1: Chop 5" off the bottom of the fender and drill new holes for the taillight/plate.

2: Chop 5" off the other end of the fender and "relocate" it by drilling new mounting holes.

Has anyone done either? Pros and cons?

Pro to relocating would seem you get to keep the "finished' edge which I guess would really end up being a matter of whether or not you are painting.

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[fredintoon]

Hi Pete,
my '79 had a 2-piece rear fender, the part under the seat was black plastic and the part you could see was chromed.
From what you post, yours ain't like that?
The 2-piecer lent itself to having the chrome part re-positioned and the plastic part discarded.
But yeah, go for option 2. As you say, it keeps the finished end. Also if you change your mind about it, you can rivet or weld the cut off part back on and the seam won't show.

 

[CoconutPete]

Mine does have the plastic piece as the "lower" piece.

The obvious "relocation" option seems to be to use the upper mounting holes and move them to the lower ones, but based on the distance between the two, that would pretty much eliminate any fender sticking out altogether.

I was just curious what people had done.

Thanks.

 

[fredintoon]

Hi Pete,
is that Denmark the European Country or one of the many U.S. towns so named?
(I used to think that saying I was born in Bristol was good enough until I found there's mebbe 12 of them dotted around the USA; Now I gotta say, Bristol, the real one, in the UK)
It's that I seem to remember that European model bikes come with fenders of a reasonable length, not those truncated North American ones, and if you had a Euro XS650 you'd have a different fender length adjustment to make.

 

[CoconutPete]

Denmark is the real one, although most of the time I'm in Charlotte, NC. This is also where the bike is, so the bike is a US model. When I'm in Denmark i'm usually rocking my moms Diesel Smart and hanging out staring at mostly Honda's in my buddy's garage.

I ordered an extra fender off eBay which I will experiment with ....

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[rick1956]

The plan for my bike was to take a section out of the fender somewhere up between the license plate mount bolts and fender mount holes, and put the rounded end back on (think hotrod top choppin'). Unfortunately, my fender has a crease in it that vibration cracked all the way through up from the end and into the taillight mounting holes. Instead I'm just going to take the whole end off and do what I can to match the contour up.
At least the chrome won't be destroyed by welding...

 

[fredintoon]

The plan for my bike was to take a section out of the fender somewhere up between the license plate mount bolts and fender mount holes, and put the rounded end back on (think hotrod top choppin'). Unfortunately, my fender has a crease in it that vibration cracked all the way through up from the end and into the taillight mounting holes. Instead I'm just going to take the whole end off and do what I can to match the contour up.
At least the chrome won't be destroyed by welding...

Hi rick,
or you could check the list's classifieds to see if there's a nice rear fender available