After a quick ride yesterday I came back home because it was about to rain. When I parked my bike in my garage I noticed the left saddlebag was loose. I thought the bolts had backed out of the mounting. I looked at it this afternoon and discovered it is broken. I took it off the bike and snapped a couple of pictures. This is rear mounting bolt hole is broken out. It is a hard plastic. If it would have been on a flat area, it would have been better. Since it is on the raised corner, the repair will be more difficult.

I am thinking about using a flat sheet sheet of plastic from the inside and using some kitty hair type fiberglass on it. Afterwards I would have drill a hole through the plastic and fiberglass. I have been thinking about going at this a few different ways.

Tomorrow I am going to pull the other bag off to check the condition of it.

I could save a good amount of money fixing it, but on the other hand, have been contemplating new bags for a while anyway. Maybe something that offers a little more functionality and / or security or who knows what.

Boss bags are nice but they are more than twice the cost as virtually any other brand. It seems like a lot of cash without having seen or hold the product in hand to determine if it really is that much better than alternatives.

I have also found these made by Viking. The way the locking mechanism works and opens seems pretty functional and the price isn't terrible either.

https://www.vikingbags.com/harley-so...saddlebags.htm


Obviously, I will attempt a repair and if it doesn't work out, fiberglass and plastic is fairly cheap.

Here are pictures of where it broke.

 

If I were you I'd just go for some new bags.
I'd never trust a repair in that area.

 

There's another thread on here about aftermarket bags on eBay. There are a few options on there that look pretty nice. They were hard bags if that helps.

 

I located a brand new oem bag for the right side so I sent the guy an email asking about the left side. If he has the left side, I told him I will buy the pair.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/182199751590

 

Looks like the opposite side is starting to break as well. Since that is the case, it doesn't make sense to attempt a repair.

 

Looks to be a bit of a design flaw. Is that fiberglass or ABS plastic? Personally, I would patch that and then add a piece of sheet metal over that whole area, epoxied on, drill holes through the metal for the mounting bolts and call it good. That would spread the load over the whole area, not just right around the mounting holes. If you replace the bags with a similar type, might be a good idea to reinforce the mounting holes on the new ones.

Oh, BTW, must be true 'cause I read it on teh intr4w3bz, y0: Sweet tea raises kidney stone risk:

http://5newsonline.com/2016/07/08/sw...ey-stone-risk/

dunno why "sweet" versus "unsweet", but whatever.

 

I quit drinking tea about thirteen years ago. I quit drinking Coke and similar soft drinks (around here we say pop, not soft drinks), five or six years ago and I quit drinking coffee almost two months ago.

The inside of the bag is made of plastic. If it was broken on a flat area, the repair would be more solid, but the broken part where the mounting hole is on a raised corner. Most of the OEM bags I see online have this same crack/break which indicates a design flaw.

I really like some of the offerings from Boss Bags, but sure wish I could have product in hand before forking over that much money. On Monday I will try a couple if independent shops to see if they have any take offs or anything. Sad thing is the independent shops don't keep anything in inventory because of some messed up laws concerning paying assessment tax on inventory. It's why the guy had to sell is dyno. He was paying more in tax than he was bringing in by having it.

Surprisingly the Harley Dealer here keeps a few tables worth of take offs, old stock, etc. and I made some amazing deals over the years that way. For all the dealer bashing that goes on on this forum, the local dealer here is actually pretty good most if the time. It also helps it is only 1.9 miles from my house. So Monday, I will try them. One gal that works their parts counter has a 97 Heritage and she helps me out pretty good. She is a bit older and of Native American heritage.

I like the 42CS3 bags here. They lock, have built in stiffeners, hold 42 cans of pop, and have several other nice features. The price is pretty high though.

http://bossbags.com/images/42s3c.jpg

 

I've got a bunch of left over mesh and resin from my boat build. If you want, you can send that up here and I can take a shot at it. I think it's fixable.

 

I think it needs to have some flex and when the plastic got old and brittle, it no longer flexed hence leading to it breaking. Since fiberglass is not really flexible, I am hesitant about the fiberglass repair. Another thing I think about is if I don't repair it, I might be able to sell them as is on eBay whereas a botched repair will be a hard sell.

So many options...although I did help build an enormous ice chest for use on a commercial shrimp boat when I was 17. I then went to work on that shrimp boat and would skip high school for a week at a time to go make money on the boat. I got A's in school, so the teachers didn't mind.

 

The bags you posted in your first post are are bigger and less that half the price of those.

Just saying.