I was getting dressed and packed to take a ride and get out in order to take some good pictures of the bags and do a detailed review, but instead, I'm going to leave this pissed off rant because one of the lids came off after one ride. Until I get this fixed, I don't have any good words for the bags.

There is a long thin metal rod that runs through the bracket/hinge that keeps the lid and the bag together. Apparently the rod is too thin and vibrates out, thus detaching from the bag.

Luckily I noticed as I was packing this morning, but only after I opened the lid and it fell on the ground and scuffed the top of my brand-new bag. In the pics below, you can see the left side bag is already vibrating loose in the rod is partially out. The right bag for is lost somewhere on the road so now I have a bag with no lid. I'm on my way to Home Depot to see if I can ghetto rig something up. I'm sure I can send a pissed off email to big Al's, but it's the weekend and I don't want to wait a week for them to reply and send me another piece.

 

That sucks I'd emai and send bags back asap or at least the bag that broke. The will let everyone know what kinda business they have. Should be just send it back and we'll replace.

 

Got 'em fixed. I bought some brass rod, of course it was too thick so I had to dremmel the whole thing narrower. I purposely left it slightly wide so it fit nice and snug. I'll get a real review soon...

Anyone else who has the bags please feel free to add to the thread, I just wanted a more informative thread going because the other one is 6 pages deep before any actual info on the bags.

 

Looks like the rod that came in them should have had some finish on the ends so they couldn't slide out either way, like if they just would have been slightly hammered to a bulge/flair type fashion.

I wouldn't think that's how they designed them, hopefully QC just missed that they didn't finish them how they were supposed to.

 

I feel like I'm expected to be somewhat of an authority on this topic because my last bike was a Defender with OG bags. The Big Al's are exactly like the old ones, except the rails mount differently. You no longer need to mount at the passenger peg location. The new design mounts at the top shock bolt and both strut bolts. Big Al's does NOT have a tab for the OEM FXDP rear sigs.

The external finish is the same, however the inside appears to be fiberglass. There's some dripping, but it's still smooth. On my old DP bags I had a hand towel folder at the bottom of the bag to eliminate vibrations from tools and what not; doing the same with these.

I was expecting new longer, stronger strut bolts, but no go. There was a a set of two thick threaded rods with large nuts on the end. I think the idea was to nut the rod onto the shock bolt for another couple inches, but the spacing was off. I rigged up my own hardware as I had some grade 8 he'd bolts laying around. With the Sideplates, bags and strut covers, my stockers weren't cutting it.

The bags come fully assembled with locks and 4 keys. The locks on Al's bags are better quality than OEM. They're heavier duty metal whereas the OG were some type of plastic. The fit of the lid is tighter than OG also. My OG's had a slight gap and rattled at speed, these don't.

The biggest concern I hear is loss of passenger pegs. I've got a set of Kuryakan 4" extensions that clear the bags (see the bottom couple of pics). The only difference on my FXDX is the pegs fold up and hit the bags, whereas my Defender would allow the pegs to completely fold up in front of the bags. I'm probably going to just unbolt the passenger pegs for aesthetics unless wifey is coming along.

 

I've always liked the look of FXDP bags and they look killer on your bike. I'm glad you were able to fix the issue with the rod slipping out of the hinge but I'd still like to know what Big Al's has to say about it.

 

Is the left bag leaning left? Is there a way to adjust them?

 

Might be, I'll double check. Might be weird camera tricks. The whole driveway slants and the bike is leaning left on the jiffy stand.

 

They look good! Sucks to hear about your initial troubles, makes me hesitate to pull the trigger myself

 

hey emerican, what are the odds one could fit in the detachable sissy bar hardware when mounting these bags?