Hi,

I've had another post going about lowering an '05 sportster 1200 custom, not going to spam with those details again, but in short I am lowering this sportster my girlfriend bought used so she can ride it better. It had lowering brackets, I am removing those, replacing w/ 10.5 burleys and front lowering kit to drop bike while keeping shock travel down, putting a lower profile rear tire on it..

When mock fitting things up and checking for clearance I noticed the belt guard is all hacked up. It's notched to gain clearance w/ the frame (which I see why was needed but I don't think will be a problem anymore since now the shock travel is much shorter, where before the bike was sitting at the same height with 2X the travel), but also somebody cut the bottoms out of the bolt holes, possibly also routing the holes larger.. I assume they either wanted to get the guard lower for clearance above, or in the process of customizing it got lazy about taking the bolts on/off and had a bright idea while holding the cut off wheel.

I won't put this thing on as-is, the rear bolt hole goes through the lower shock bolt and IMHO it's not safe to have something like this that could come loose on something so critical, causing the shock bolt to get real loose, or even fall out next to the belt. Choices seem to be A - circular file this guard, it's not needed, run it without one - this bike is now a solo seat solo rider bike w/ the modifications it's got anyway, and it may just make life more difficult at it's new superlow height.. Or options B - get another guard and start over, without screwing up the bolt holes.

What do you think? Seems like many people remove these top guards, not sure what they do for you in the absence of a passenger, but maybe I'm not considering something.

Thanks in advance!

Jon

 

Get a new one, cheap enough.

 

Get a new one. The guard is to stop rocks and debris from getting caught in the sprocket whic could damage both the belt and the sprocket.

How's the lower belt guard look?

 

Yes get a new one.

 

^^^ This^^^, replace it.

 

IMO, as well as many others that I've read here on these forum , the upper belt guard isn't needed. It's the lower belt guard that keeps derbies out of the drive train. I took the lower guard off my Springer and did pick up a nail in pretty short time. I'm not running the upper on my FXR, just the lower for the past 3 years with no ill effects whatsoever,

I say be gone with upper, but retain the lower! If the lower guard gets in the way, be gone with that too. One of the beauties of a Sportster is the simplicity of changing the drive belt. It can be done in less than an hour.

 

Another vote for "get a new one"!

 

My springer has been doing fine for 20 years without the upper belt guard, as well as the wife's sporty for the last year (as well as some other bikes I have owned in the past). Get rid of it.

 

Just buy a new one and be done with it.

 

Thanks all for that feedback!

As far as the bottom, it doesn't get in the way of anything and it remains unharmed.

One thing to point out on the upper guard - I think it will be OK now that I'm shortening the suspension travel, but no way to know if the clearance is OK until I put a stock one on and do some measuring. I very well may buy one and find out I gotta start hacking away at it, which is why I was thinking maybe I should keep it simple and delete that part... But as mentioned, I see for $35 there's a chrome one up on Ebay I can have; could buy one, find it's going to be a pain, and throw it into the parts pile without much risk worst scenario.

Is there any safety hazard to speak of with that top guard, like do people get things jammed in there that lock the rear wheel or get themselves somehow sucked into it? It's never going to carry a passenger. Am definitely not worried about a belt or pulley getting damaged here and there if that's all it really serves to do, as mentioned is not very hard to replace, and it's only going to be about a 500 mile per year bike on the high end so ultra reliability is not really needed.

Jon