plate holder

Like most others I didn't like the stock plate holder and mud flap. I tried the chop down method but did not like how the lights came so close to the exhaust. So I went ahead and made my own out of a sheet of aluminum. It works great, and even includes the plate light. I could make another if someone wants to trade me for their stock tail, just so I have it for the future. Let me know what you guys think.





ps. Obviously the huge tail was effective, notice the road spray around the brake light now

[kuhlka]

You might want to use a thicker piece of aluminum because it will eventually bend and crack along that top area where it bolts to the light. I had mine break off, bounce around between the wheel and undertail swinging by the LED light's wires damaging my CF hugger and CF exhaust, then got caught by the wheel and somehow got shoved to the right side between swingarm and wheel before the wires snapped and it was launched off the road to the right side.

Luckily, my CF hugger and exhaust only got a single minor chip each and the tire I had on there didn't get punctured, but it had some really nice long gashes in it where the plate struck it.

Definitely get some thicker aluminum for any plate brackets. I've got a swingarm mount license plate holder if anyone is interested.

What thickness piece did you use? This one is 22 guage from Home Depot. The next thickest was 16 guage which just seemed way too thick. I considered putting a support bracket/stip down the back, but I was just out riding today and got the chance to swap bikes and ride behind. There was next to no shaking and bouncing going over bumps. The plate also bolts all the way under the tail itself, the light is mounted to the metal. I'll keep an eye out for any crackingor weakening.

Does anyone else have problems with the pictures appearing? It seems hit or miss if they come up when I open the page or refresh.

[kuhlka]

Well, I WAS doing lots of stoppies at the time when my crappy temporary holder snapped loose. I used sheet metal that looked to be around 3/32" thick. I'm not all that good at recognizing guages yet.

Here is what I put together for my fiance's 05ST;






As you can see, the material is pretty thick and I welded the seams for extra strength. Now we just need to get her an integrated LED tail light so we can get rid of those bulbous turn signals.

[Hotmailjerk]

The ST setup looks good. Id even keep the turnsignals. Paint it black and you'd be good to go. The Speed Triple bracket looks a lot like what I have. I didnt hack up my stock piece so I can go back if I want. I just took off the license plate light.

[crashmasterd]

This is what I built for my 05 Speed Triple.



It is .125 aluminum (that's 1/8 inch or 11 Gauge) and painted black. Should re-do it and get it anodized. I had a similar one on two different bikes and neither one ever cracked.

.125 aluminum will never break under the kind of vibration on a motorcycle. I use to build stuff (professionally) out of both .125 and .063 (1/16 or about 16 Gauge) aluminum for heavy trucks and it took a severe amount of abuse to crack them just through vibration.

What kuhlka has built is in my opinion severe overkill, but nice. What you must remember is when you start adding bracing like he did you reduce the flexibility of the metal. This makes it prone to cracks at the stress points. A simpler piece of metal with only one bend will flex and act as a spring. This tends to reduce the amount of cracking.

OTOH, what kuhlka has built is so over-engineered that it will probably never crack short of an accident. Here's hoping that it never happens.

What nthn_specl has made looks to be made out of either .063 aluminum, or more likely .050 to my eye (which is pretty good). If it's .050 then I agree it's probably too light and will break easily. You would probably get away with .063 or .100 but .125 would be best.



[ This message was edited by: crashmasterd on 2006-01-07 21:52 ]

[kuhlka]

Yeah, the really nice thing about her ST is that the whole thing just unbolted from 3 bolts and came right off so we can always return it to stock if some anal-retentive nutbag is being picky.

I'll eventually sand it down smooth and either powdercoat it or just spray it black.