I must have been lucky.
Mine were a little bit of a pain, but lined up eventually with a punch and slight swearing.

 

Soft lowers are alot easier,just need them in the winter,spring,wash them and put away for next winter.

 

Took mine off the day I brought it home and haven't had the desire to try and put them on again. More trouble than they're worth, IMO.

 

I can't get the gap uniform either and I've tried several times. I gave up and just don't look at the gap any more.

 

yep they are a pain in the azz it took 2 of us to install them-ride safe

 

Mine werent that much of a pain, I think I may have used channel locks to form it to the bar and the bolt and centerpunch. Its been so long now I just left the clamps on all year round, the lay at the bottom and I can now put both on in about 10-15 mins. My only bitch now is the covers for the top of the bar dont line up right. The factory put the inserts off a couple hairs and thats a pita for me.

 

Think I am going to hit them from another angle tonight. Gonna take the lowers completely off then fit and form the clamps. That way I can twist and bend without chancing damage to the lowers.

And another ?? about fitament. Are the bottoms of the lowers supposed to rest completely on the crash bar. When I was fiddling with them last night they did not want to sit down fully on the bar.

 

You dont have to remove the lowers to install the clamps.Just install the clamp on the side of the bar and use channel locks to form them.Then just side them down into position.

As far as the bottoms,there should be a rubber washer between the fairing and the clamp.So there should be a small gap.

 

Done deal. Did it my way and got it. Pulled the lowers off and took a big screwdriver and gave the clamp a couple of good cranks and that is all she wrote. Obviously the other side took a matter of minutes to install.

 

I had some issues too. What I did was to loosely mount the lower clamp then move to the top bracket. Ended up elongating the hole slightly to make it work. What you do not want to do is force it as this will stress the fairing at the mounting holes which could result in cracking. Also used a rubber washer or two on the top mounting to help with the alignment to the fairing.