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General Category >> Rubber Side Down! >> RYCA Side Panel Thumbscrews
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Message started by Gyrobob on 08/10/11 at 05:40:56

Title: RYCA Side Panel Thumbscrews
Post by Gyrobob on 08/10/11 at 05:40:56

It seems inconsistent to me that so much effort is put into this bike by Suzuki and even RYCA, to make sure things don't come loose,... locktite, lock washers, etc.

The RYCA design uses thumbscrews to hold the side panels on.
-- Not much torque available here because the best you can do it to get them fingertight.
-- You could use pliers to tighten them, I guess, but then you'd need a tool to get them unscrewed. Might as well use a real fastener (socket head, hexhead, etc.)
-- No effort is put into making sure these things stay in place.

For youse guys that have been riding your CS-1s around, have the thumbscrews been staying in place satisfactorily?

Title: Re: RYCA Side Panel Thumbscrews
Post by BuckRYCA on 08/10/11 at 08:00:52

Most of the kit is well thought out and has given me no trouble in over 900 miles of riding. However, I did lose both thumbscrews on the front side of the battery box. My fix was to use the kit adhesive to glue 1"x1" Commerical Electric black plastic electrical connectors to the inside front top of the side panels. I threaded zipties through the slots in the connector pieces and fixed the panels to the frame with the zipties. It works, but, of course, I have to cut the zipties to remove the side panels.

Title: Re: RYCA Side Panel Thumbscrews
Post by sbaugz on 08/10/11 at 08:49:49

I replaced the thumbscrews with equivalent sized allen head cap screws and lock washers. So far, no issues with them. The two bottom ones are easy to get to. THe right side one is also fairly easy to get to. The left side is very tight and took some effort to get the allen wrench in there.
I agree, the thumbscrews are not a great way of securing the side panels and I would ditch them in favor of something else .

Title: Re: RYCA Side Panel Thumbscrews
Post by MotoBuddha on 08/10/11 at 09:12:29

A possible alternative might be to bolt the bracket to the battery box with regular fasteners, then use Velcro to hold the side covers to the bracket. That's what they do with interior panels on aircraft and other industrial uses. Of course, that's not an option if you've already glued the brackets and panels together.

But it's not like we need to be taking the side covers off all the time. How often do we need to fiddle with the battery?

Title: Re: RYCA Side Panel Thumbscrews
Post by Gyrobob on 08/10/11 at 09:19:53

06243F24093E2F2F232A4B0 wrote:

I'm toying with the idea of using a lithium ion (really small) battery, and have some of the unused battery box space for a toolkit. I would want to be able to get the sidepanels off without too much trouble, and without the need of tools.

Title: Re: RYCA Side Panel Thumbscrews
Post by runrun on 08/10/11 at 09:27:02

ditto what sbaugz said. i've used allen socket heads too for the hard-to-reach forward screws. and they are standard, not metric. bigger washers help to provide more contact and make the panels less likely to move back and forth in their slots.

don't forget to carry the right size standard allen wrench in your tool kit!

another winter project will be to try dsuz fasteners for the battery box and rear seat bolts (i messed up the threads on the captive nuts for the rear seat mounts, so just drilled them out and used longer bolts and nylocks ), and figure out a better tank/front of the seat mounting system. those fasteners are a real pain to get at.

Title: Re: RYCA Side Panel Thumbscrews
Post by arteacher on 08/10/11 at 14:05:01

Just put star washers under them.

Title: Re: RYCA Side Panel Thumbscrews
Post by MotoBuddha on 08/10/11 at 18:49:52

2E25252C202F2E3435410 wrote:

Just put star washers under them.

And some thread lock couldn't hurt.

Title: Re: RYCA Side Panel Thumbscrews
Post by Gyrobob on 08/10/11 at 19:50:39

16342F34192E3F3F333A5B0 wrote:

[quote author=2E25252C202F2E3435410 link=1312980056/0#6 date=1313010301]Just put star washers under them.

And some thread lock couldn't hurt.[/quote]

Star washers and threadlock would keep them from coming loose, even when I wanted to unscrew them.