A really good friend and riding partner has been trying to come up with the best option for putting bags on his 04 dyna wide glide. Its the model that has the turn signals in the way of where the bags would mount. He has studied doing several things and is about to put a.light bar on the rear and move the signals to the back of the fender. Really dont want to do that because that changes the bike into something else other than a true dyna of the year model. He has found bags that cost a fortune and that wont work as we are just regular bikers.....not carrying around an extra grand to thow at bags. I thought it might be worth bouncing it off the forum for ideas. Anything that we have overlooked would be welcomed. He has also mulled the idea of drilling another hole toward the rear of the sideplates and move them about two inches back. Still that dont seem to be the best idea either. Maybe someone has a.set of reasonably priced bags he could buy that are made for that year.......thanks.in advance.
Ride safe and often.......Mark

 

Just purchased an '04 Wide Glide myself. Was going back and forth about bags too. My final decision is I am not going too. Rear of the bike just looks too good to cover up. Not a fan of moving the blinkers to hang off the sides of license plate to accommodate bags. I opted to use a small sissy bar bag (Fox Creek). Like it so much, I may get one of their small round tool bags too!

 

Run a 05 WG and use the Willie&Max small compact bags no problem,I am going to swap them out for a bigger set .I am still going to run W&M just the large size

 

get a sissy bar bag...a lot of them will actually hold more then saddlebags and it comes off quick when you don't need it. Also if you stay overnight you just take it off and take it in the hotel with you. You don't have to worry about relocating anything.

 

Exactly, if it is not done right it would be a.bad outcome. Hoping someone has the perfect solution for him. He really needs something to carry things in. Most always he will use one of my bags on my heritage which I dont mind but sometimes I have them full. Thanks!

 

Yeah...he has the sissy bar and a bag for it. Were talking traveling farther for longer away times and just the luggage rack is not enough storage. I hate to see him drill holes or install them in a way that screws up the Harley in it....if ya know what im saying...will look at the willie max and see what thier solution is....keep them coming anx thanks.

 

Shop Ebay for Dyna Big Bags.....I just replaced a set as the tops had shrunk from the P/O leaving it out in the weather.

They have a pocket formed for the rear tail lights.



Karsten

 

Not much of a choice if you plan to mount them on the bike either as a hard-mount system or using a set of saddlebag frames. You could buy a small set of throwovers bags, run them without the frames, but you run the risk of them shifting too much.

I use the Willie and Max Revolution bags. I like them a lot, they were reasonably priced (purchased online at Dennis Kirk). Here's the W&M site:

http://www.willieandmax.com/Store/Re...%2cProductName

The exact reason I went with the W&M bags. I paid something like $235 for the bags with their built in mounting system. The bags are not real leather, obviously, but they look pretty good. Best part, they are built around a plastic liner, so they are plenty rigid. I've not seen any reason to believe they will sag. The ridid liner gives me enough support to stick in all kinds of stuff and still maintain some integrity. This adds to the overall support of the system as well. So, the use of the included bracket system seems to be about all you'll need.

Is he any good at metal work? I'm not, but I still made my own frame system for the turn signals. I bought some sheet metal from the local ranch store, cut it to shape, bent it as needed, and then welded as necessary to create a frame that is plenty strong. I think I paid $4 for the metal, $5 for a can of decent spray paint, and spent the afternoon in the garage with my metal cutoff tool, bench vise, and welder. There are mounting systems that range in price from just under $50 to well over $100 ... but for my $9 in parts and 2 hours work I made a system that looks great and functions just as well. I painted it flat black (in the future I might try powder coating it) and it fits nicely against the tag mounting system.

The wires on the FXDWGI are long enough (mine were, at least) to allow you to move the rear turn signals to a point on the tag bracket. Just be careful rerouting. I moved the whole stalk with lights and it's hard to tell it is not a professional job. Since I don't plan to take off my bags (I use them too much for that) I can't see that I'll ever care about the original look of the bike. Even if I did want to move the signals back, with a decent mounting bracket it's really no problem. The whole move is fairly easy, and I think with fabrication time I spent less than 3.5 hours on the project. And I work really slow.

 

Karsten - over time, I've really warmed up to the looks of those bags ... those are about the roomiest bags ever produced for the Dynas to my knowledge ... do you have the P/N ...? Also, if I am not mistaken, those are a discontinued item ...?

Those are close to the same capacity as the Road King hard bags if I am not mistaken ... if I were to do it all over I would go with those ...

 

ooooooo those bags really rock!