2003 Yamaha RoadStar, 1602cc, 57000 miles. I bought it in August 2009 with 23300 miles.
I bought some saddlebags from Tsukayu and installed them a couple years ago. What a pain in the ass. The saddle bags are great....very large, sturdy, durable, but installation sucked. On some other models they have model specific brackets which makes installation easy and simple, only takes about 5 minutes. It took a couple days to do these.
Today, it didn't take too long to remove them, which is necessary for hitch installation. HitchDoc provided the hitch, made in Jackson, MN. BTW I bought my first motorcycle from a guy in Jackson. I bought the hitch from a guy in MI, but I'm sure it shipped from Jackson, since it arrived the next day via UPS. The MI guy offered free shipping.....
All along this process I've been wondering if the hitch goes against the fender under the backrest bracket or over it. Some measuring tells me it goes over it.
Oddly enough, a couple of my mounting bolts are stripped, I knew this and had put nuts on the inside of the fender to hold them tight. That was fun. Fun to remove, as well. I do believe that the threads in the fender are ok, just the bolts are buggered. I need slightly longer bolts anyway, so I don't mind replacing them. I hope that the replacements are better...I may put nuts on the inside anyway, just in case.....and thread locker too.
When I put the bags on, I also put lights on the bags. Now I get to redo all that. :( I had put plugs on the end of the cords powering the bag lights, but the plugs were a little too large to be easily removable from the underseat area. That's not so bad, it's workable. Somehow, some way I spliced a wire into the wrong side of the plug, so I had to cut them, which means I'll have to resplice them. Dumb.
I think I'll find smaller plugs and remedy that splice situation. I think I'll also change the lights somewhat, change them to LEDs.
Do you want pics? Too bad, I don't have any right now.
I bought some saddlebags from Tsukayu and installed them a couple years ago. What a pain in the ass. The saddle bags are great....very large, sturdy, durable, but installation sucked. On some other models they have model specific brackets which makes installation easy and simple, only takes about 5 minutes. It took a couple days to do these.
Today, it didn't take too long to remove them, which is necessary for hitch installation. HitchDoc provided the hitch, made in Jackson, MN. BTW I bought my first motorcycle from a guy in Jackson. I bought the hitch from a guy in MI, but I'm sure it shipped from Jackson, since it arrived the next day via UPS. The MI guy offered free shipping.....
All along this process I've been wondering if the hitch goes against the fender under the backrest bracket or over it. Some measuring tells me it goes over it.
Oddly enough, a couple of my mounting bolts are stripped, I knew this and had put nuts on the inside of the fender to hold them tight. That was fun. Fun to remove, as well. I do believe that the threads in the fender are ok, just the bolts are buggered. I need slightly longer bolts anyway, so I don't mind replacing them. I hope that the replacements are better...I may put nuts on the inside anyway, just in case.....and thread locker too.
When I put the bags on, I also put lights on the bags. Now I get to redo all that. :( I had put plugs on the end of the cords powering the bag lights, but the plugs were a little too large to be easily removable from the underseat area. That's not so bad, it's workable. Somehow, some way I spliced a wire into the wrong side of the plug, so I had to cut them, which means I'll have to resplice them. Dumb.
I think I'll find smaller plugs and remedy that splice situation. I think I'll also change the lights somewhat, change them to LEDs.
Do you want pics? Too bad, I don't have any right now.
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