Hey Wilbur I am liking your pelican case set up - can you tell me how they are mounted and what size pelican cases you are using?
looking good!
cheers
Andy
Thanks Steve and Andy.
I had been scouring Craigslist for a while looking for some 1550 cases. Finally struck gold when someone posted over a dozen used Pelican cases for $25 each! They were mostly 1650 cases (bigger than I wanted at 28.5x17.37x10.5), but I called anyway (price was too good to pass up) and the seller indicated that he did indeed have a couple 1550 cases. Had to drive to Tampa (little over an hour away) to get them. Turns out they are 1510 cases which include wheels and an extension handle and they are designed to meet TSA maximum size limit for airline carry-on bags. The 1510 (19.75x11x7.6) cases are a little longer and narrower than the 1550 (18.43x14x7.62). I removed the wheels and extension handle for saddle bag use, and the mounting points for this hardware now serve double duty as mounting points for the motorcycle bracket as well. These cases were used as enclosures for custom electronics and had some holes through the sides where data and power connectors passed through the case. Just had to seal those up. The 1510 and 1550 are close enough dimensionally that I should be able to mount 1550 cases to the same brackets (once I find a deal on a set of 1550's!).
Andy, shoot me a PM if you want more details, the mounting is quite simple, it took me longer to figure out HOW to mount them than it did to actually fabricate the mounts. I even extended the mount far enough to the rear to accept the stock taillights. A little bit of 3/8" rod with an 1/8" thick tab on the end made for a "capture" bracket that is secured by rotating through the mounting bracket on one end and the padlock I used for the case lids on the other end. Open the padlock, rotate the bracket, and the cases simply lift off. I used a three-point mount, two on top (which is the primary load bearing) and one at the bottom rear to stabilize the bags. The three-point mount makes each bag side specific (one mounts on right side only, the other on the left side only) since they are fairly close to the shock at the lower front, if I were to add the extra hardware to make them ambidextrous, I would have wanted to shift them further outboard for clearance (not an option in my opinion).
The bags are mounted using all stock hardware and there were absolutely no modifications to any of the original (stock) components. In 15 minutes I can have the saddlebag mounts removed and have the bike back in original stock trim. I am considering doing a write-up and posting a how-to, but the process of photo-documenting everything is time consuming and I'm a little busy at the moment. Maybe when things settle down a little....
Does that ever happen?
