Well, I got my brackets from the friendly UPS man today and went to work installing them.  

First off, evidently the old style brackets for the Savage that mount to the center bolt and the rear bolt next to the turn signals are no longer available.  The ones I received were for the S40, which uses the forward-most bolt and the center bolt.  No biggie though...

Tried removing the bolts as the bike sat, got the center one out with no problem, but the front one was a different issue.  After several attempts, I broke out the floor jack, borrowed my other sweetheart (my wife), and jacked the bike up in the center after pulling the shocks off.

This should've been the way I went from the get-go!  But what do they say?  You live and learn...

Now I know if I decide to replace the shocks how incredibly simple that will be.

Once I dropped the shocks, I was able to raise the bike up on the jack with my wife steadying the bike, the swingarms dropped right on down and the rest was history.

I will say this.  Suzuki doesn't think when they package things.  They included replacement bolts for the front bolt, which is too short when installing the brackets.  Well, Suzuki's bolt is WAYYYYYYYYYYYY too long, so I had to make a quick trip into town (5 minutes) to the hardware store before they closed and get a metric bolt that was in between the OEM bolt and the replacement one that came with the brackets.

I did take the extra security step of placing a lock washer behind the acorn nuts on the front bolts to ensure that nothing backs off due to vibration.

Made a nice installation, but I need to do some fine tuning on the bags.  I use Willie and Max Compact Slants, and the bag tabs just don't match well to the brackets and I can't draw them down as tightly as I'd like them.  However, that's a minor detail and can be worked around.

It did take a bit to trim the yoke to fit around the rectifier that is under the pillion, but a trusty utility knife took care of that in fast order.

Any of you that use the W&M Compact Slants, what did you do to best secure the bags to the brackets?  I can't draw them down TOO tight, as it distorts the bag and makes it look like crap.  My thinking is I may need to fabricate a cross piece that will clamp to the brackets and extend to either side of the bag to pull this off.

Tom

Well, for anybody else who will come along and do this, I can testify that dropping the shocks makes all the difference in the world in getting those blasted brackets on!

I can sympathize with the accessibility problems though I must have gotten the older version because they fit properly the first time.  I didn't bother to lift the bike though and my knuckles and wrists paid the price - but I got them installed the stupid way.  I removed them later (this time lifting the bike) when I tried a trunk for a while and reinstalled them a few months ago.  The huge difference was that I reinstalled them after upgrading to the 12.5" Progressive shocks.  Now I can install/remove them easily without lifting the bike.

I marked two holes behind the saddle bags where the bottom of the brackets and the bags meet (one on the top and one on the bottom of the bracket). Then I tie the bags to the brackets with excess leather strings that came with the bags to keep the bags from flapping in the wind