Spent a very aggravating afternoon trying to install crash bars on my bike. Had myself torqued into a pretzel trying to flex the bar and force it into place whilst getting the bolts started. Managed to get the left one on, but then it was so out of spec that I couldn't reinstall the plastic trim that holds the radiator side cover. Fought and fought with the right hand side, almost pulled the bike over on myself a few times, and finally gave up. There was just no way the lower bolt holes were ever going to line up. I considered drilling out a hole to make it fit, but that wouldn't have left much metal in that area. I also didn't have any hardware included that would have connected the cross bar. So I gave up and pulled them off and tossed them back in the box to return.
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Looks sooooo close but the holes are drilled in the wrong place and will never line up, not even when I was using a pry bar to try and force it.
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The plastic trim was pushed out of shape by the bar. I don't mind a little "finessing" to get the things to fit but I'm not putting up with it being this far off.
That's what I get for going for a cheap set off ebay I guess.
Back to shopping; I don't want to spend on the Puig, plus I prefer a set that has the horizontal bar between the two vertical bars, and the Puig doesn't seem to be built that way.
Jadehawk, what set did you pick up from Amazon? I keep re-reading the reviews and even with the Puig it seems like a lot of people run into the misalignment.
And does anyone have a good source for buying better hardware? My local Ace doesn't have anything that would fit. I was quite unhappy with the Chinesium bolts, felt like they were going to snap as I tried to thread them in and was afraid they were going to bugger up the threads on my bike.
