The Great Hard Luggage Restoration Thread Saddlebags and Trunk

i wanted to keep as much of stock looks as possible. fortunatly between the two bags i had a good idea of what they once looked like and included. and my trunk was in better shape though has some bad scrapes in it. from factory there is a double pin stripe, thick and thin going around the permimiter. yamaha did this with a printer sticker, meaning colored ink/paint(some kind of pigment) on the inside of a clear substrate and cut to size. the shape was not applied but rather cut that way and stuck on. I didnt have a good way to recreate that, so i elected to go wtih a more tradional pin stripe tape, but kept the metallic gold color. i was able to find a double stripe about the correct size, 1/8 and 1/16 stripes, but it has an 1/8 seperation. and i needed a 1/16 spacing, which i couldnt find. so out came the scisors to split it in half.



to lay out the striping i used 1/16in fineline tape to get my placement.



then lay my metailics on either side to maintain spacing



peal away to goodness



I had my local sign shop cut some decals for me. again the orginals were sticker but i maintiained the sizes and placement with my vinyls



I wanted to tie in my newly color matched fairing to the rest and continued the striping playing on the orginal placement of the fatory rooster decals. and the XJ750 at the end i rather enjoy. the windshield i made a new gasket and upgraded the harward to nylon washers (had to dye those black) and stanless screws.

 

now on to the fine details.

from factory there are a couple stickers. one for the lock mechanisim and a warning label. on the bags they were practicaly gone but my trunk had decent ones. I made reproductions of them myself using laster printer and specal bumper sticker paper. they are water proof and i am please with how they came out wtih a caveat. The caution sticker is supposed to be metalic. i looked into having some made but that didnt work out. then i found a great method for making them. print them with a laser, then get silver leaf foil. place on top and run through a lamenator. the toner melts againe and the leaf sticks to it and you peal away to reveal only the silver where the toner was. i was excited because this process works perfectly on paper. by that i mean like regual paper, even that fine detail. but with the bumper sticker paper the laminator heats up the plastic too cuasing the oil leaf to just stick to the entire sticker solid silver. i expieremented pleanty, but any way to heat the toner enough to stick the silver would heat the plastic too. so I went wtih jsut black print. i expierement with some grayscale stuff but nothign looked right so black it is. the lock sticker however, is almost dead on.

happy to share my file if anyone wants to print their own.

 

inside the bags also required some detail work. there are elastic straps with chrome hooks. i had about 4in of elastic left in one bag and a single chrome hook as an example. the rest all rotted away. new elastic was easy, but the hooks? here is a place where i really feel i could have done better but i tried and they work. i bough some mirrored stainless sheeet metal and bent my own basic hooks. i shoul have built a buck for it to make them more uniform and crisp. but also the elastic had to go in with the hinges as they share a mount, so attaching them in bag was challenging. i should have done the hooks first.



see that plastic pouch there? that is factory.

and here is a chunk of foam i suspect is to protect the inside of the door? IDK i only had 1 of each of these. so I cut 2 new foams, pictured here. which was easy enough, but then i needed to make another pouch thing.

 

i picked up some black ABS vaccu form plastic. but i dont have a vacuform. so i layed the door down (pre paint) lined it wtih foil. layed my ABS on top and went to town with a heat gun, welding gloves and spary bottlle of water.

paitientce, tiral and error and it worked out pretty good. certainly not factory nor identicle but it fulfills its purpose. and i trimed it a little too short. but it did pull off the curves pretty well.

 

inside the trunk i sewed some straps to the brackets go a few buckles and finished the ends of the strap wtih chrome bits

 

thats it for all the detail stuff.

here is a group of pics of the finished luggage.

 

last post wtih final thoughts. i wish the aluminium was nicer. i attempted to polish, wet sad with various grits, products. and well it cleaned them well and it got brighter but the only way to get rid of that damage would be to cover it up. meaning to paint it or recoat it. i didnt think it would turn out too great or last and decided to leave it as is. maybe that was mistake. i am sure somthing could be done, but i had already put too much time and money into this and i made the decsion to leave it. maybe someday it will bother me enough to change my mind.

currently the bag bodies are water tight but the main seam is not, where the two halfves come togheter. the gaskest are very worn. it is 4mm wide, 2mm thick rubber. which i cant find so i think will be cutting my own, or trying something clever with silicone. so that still needs to happen. but first i need to clean my garage and take a break from this project. so i wont ride in the rain i guess. i am impressed how tight they mount and they dont rattle. and on the road areo wise well you feel them but no worse than just the trunk. i fear the cracks may come back over time, or new ones form. i fixed them correctly but the nature of the beast i think its invetiable. I have more faom too and thinking of lining the bottoms to avoid stuff bouncing around and doing damage. and the exhaust is pretty close, so far so good, but if the paint starts to cook i will put some stick on heat shield there.

Here is a before wtih the trunk.




and a bunch of afters. it was cloudy today and the color hard to capture but again its close not perfect but in this case it looks better in person than pictures colorwise. But overall pictures make things look nicer than they are and i assure you there are painting mistakes in there. but they hide OK. and last pre qualifier, that fairing is not true, as in not square or true to anything, so doing the decal and plastic trim comes down to doing the best you can. and the headlight bucket gets tweaked when its mounted. but i guess thats 80s quality there.

 

That looks awesome, and your attention for details is impeccable!
Alan

 

Looking good.....FYI---- the thin foam insert doesn't belong in the door. It is the 'floor' of the saddlebag. The straps come up through it.

 

I would love a copy of the decal file. Will send a private conversation

Dave

 

I appreciate the info. That makes sense and was thinking of doing the floor in foam. When they came to me that's where it was. But the shape did seem odd.

I will move them down.


And thanks for the compliments all. I am generally pleased with the outcome.

 

I think the reason why the headlight bucket gets tweakd when the fariring is installed is that fairing really wasn't meant to fit square-light motorcycles.
Whoever decided to market it as a universal fairing wasn't thinking (it was designed and produced after Vetter sold the fairing business).

The bags look sooooo good.

 

That looks fantastic! Great work. I've used Eastwoods plastic restorer extensively, I can't say how it holds up long term but might bring some "bling" back to your plastic parts.

 

what you see of the plastics is after being treated wtih back to black. maybe not that good, i cant say. but a it is a product designed for that purpose i fear that is as good as they get. i even dyed the handels and that only helped some.

 

They definitely don't look bad, just thought I would mention. Not sure how it would hold up to the interior but I've used on controls and gauge cover and seems to hold up to my gloved hands so far.

 

i might give it a try. couldnt hurt.

 

Nice Work! Those bags look great on your bike!
Thanks for the great write up!

FYI on the pinstripe. Any amount of heat like the 90+ temps down there friday (I was in Tampa) will loosen the adhesive on the stripes. You might want to clear over them to keep them from peeling.

Could you give a source for the rivets?

 

perhaps on the pin stripe. i will keep it in mind. in the past i have burried my decals in clear and its a nice result. however it wasnt possible for me to do layout during the paint process. i guess i could have waited and cleared after, but fear reactions or funy buisness. i figured it would be safer to lay them on top since i couldnt do them all same day. and factory was on top so i justified it that way. true i could clear them now, but to do it proper i would have to break down the bags again and i dont see that happening. i do use and recomend only 3m striping tapes and masking tapes for that matter. i have had good luck in other projects, and here in the waste of ND high temps like that are rare but do happen. time will tell, worst case reapply and reacess.


rivents. the semi tublar ones had to come from china only source i coudl find. i wanted stainless but only button heads came stainless flat head was alum only. they are M4 and i bout 20mm and 10mm. i did have to hand modify a couple to make work.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017ON9PGK/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018RT4OO8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

i though about geting rivet tools for my airhammer but again china only for anything reasonable or grind my own. but first i bought the cheapest tool i could find

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DPM6WDE/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

and i just used that and did it with a hammer. not that many anyways.

the poprivets i went with stainless. if you only have the basic handriveter go alum, these are tuff unless you have the long handle style. I however have the cheaper harborfrieght pneumatic rivet gun which works awesome. factory uses the type with the closed end, which i could only find in alum. so these are standard pop rivets. and i put a dab of silicone inside hollow of each after setting.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/171040803926?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

http://www.ebay.com/itm/171040804533?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

 

If you do, watch ebay. Eastwood sells their stuff there as well and you can catch it for ~30% cheaper than usual.

 

I moved the foam to the bottom, makes more sense and they fit. I think I'll cut one for the trunk. Still haven't cleaned garage. Then it's time to make them water tight