Ok, got the Hard bags off of ebay in today, my overall assessment is;

You get what you pay for, BUT, they are a GOOD deal I think.

1. I will have to move my rear turn signals to the back by the license plate.

2. I will have to slide the Large hard case on the tail back about an inch and a half.

3. I will have to make brackets to attach these to the chrome rail, or, remove the rails and attach some bolts from the other direction and put the nut on the bag side.

4. Wire up the bag lights into the park or brake light (not both), I will remove the plastic bulb protector and see if I can install a double filament bulb later. OR I could wire the bags to be the blinkers.

5. When the hinge breaks (in the future), will have to install a better hinge.

6. Add some kind of support for the mount holes on the abs itself. The lip is 1/8" thick at the top, but only seems thinner overall ( I don't have a mic so I cannot measure thickness), so I will probably add some washers glued to the abs to make the bolt hole areas a little stronger so it will not crack due to vibrations.

7. A thicker coat of clear would probably benefit the paint, I already scratched it a little on the top.

Here is a slide show link to my photobucket;

http://s1047.photobucket.com/user/Orphistle/slideshow/Suzuki%20Savage/Suzuki%...

I am actually thinking of making it like my Harley bags and use a hinge along the outside edge and make it open on the outside long edge.
An yup, if I do put a hinge on it, I will reinforce it, I have some thin aluminum and some  thin tin that I plan on using when beefing the bags up.
The external tube rails are magnetic, so they will work well to keep stuff from bumping the bags and might even keep the bike from hitting the ground if it falls over.

Uhh, yea, those brackets arent real exciting to look at..

Man, no kiddin,, the pic of the hinge left me thinkin I was almost seeing thru the bag below that hinge,Looks as close to eggshell as could be successfully pulled from the mold w/o breaking. I dont see the hings as the weak spot. Im seein the hinge break away from the main body or the lid.

Okay, I went back & looked again, Sure 'nuff, where the hings mounts to the lower part looks really spooky. I think Id look at a plate on the outside that touches the lower part of the hinge, so when the lid is up, pressure to open it further would be held up, against it, riveted thru to another plate inside. Id radius the lower corners of the outside plate a little to keep any pressure transferred when the lid is up from attacking a single point. The lid part doesnt look all that weak, but I cant really see it. If you can stop the lids weight from flexing the main body when its open by limiting how far it opens, youll be ahead,
In the rivet section youll find washers that fit on rivets. A wide head on a rivet & a washer on the inside can be helpful when working on flimsy stuff.

Dave wrote on 01/20/14 at 06:34:17:



True. The ones that I had were invisible during the day. so I added some flush mount turn signals and wired the other ones as brake lights.

These things break license plates. Ive seen the rear fender flop back & forth so hard I couldnt believe my eyes. Under hard acceleration,somewhere around the top of first or bottom of second, IDK, my girl was riding away from me & I couldnt hear it & she didnt know it was happening,, but I saw it whip back & forth hard enough theres no way I could read the tag,

Mine are hooked up as brake lights and they are bright, don't see why they won't work for turn signals. They use a short 1156 bulb.

that's my idea too, get the bags and ditch the factory signals