The twins live!!!

[JWSanders]

Finally, after several weeks of mishaps, both my bikes are running strong again! Took a carb cleaning on the 11 and a new (used) head in the 400, but both are purring nicely now. Ok well, the 400 doesn't necessarily purr, but it has an interesting sound all it's own.




Also played around with a few backrest options. I *really* like the look of just a grab bar. Will likely leave it this way for the time being. It matches the little bike so well:



Also got a chance to check the fit of some Samsonite hard bags I got on Ebay recently. The mounting holes arent exact, so I'll need to fabricate a few tabs to offest the holes, but it's not too bad. The bags themselves are in great shape for their age. The chrome is perfect. Will have to fabricate a backrest, then I may just run this with the luggage rack on all the time. Either way, I'm going to put all the racks on using some type of quick fasteners so it can all be added or removed easily. Going to have to reengineer a mount for the tail light and turn signals, too. I'm thinking about making a lightbar out of yellow and red LED's and mount it permanently under the luggage rack so I can just plug it in when I want to run the baggage.




Have I mentioned lately how much I love this bike? One twist on the throttle (especially after riding the 400 for a couple of days) proved once again how smooth and flat out powerful it is. I've been so wrapped up in the 400 for over a month now I haven't even tried to ride the big guy. Calling it "Head-snapping" seems almost like selling it short!

The little 400 is a breeze to work on, too. Simple and very intuitive. Had never seen one before and was able to rebuild the head and get it retimed pretty easily. The best part - got the head, cam and topcover on Ebay for a whopping $9.99! Parts are cheap for these bikes, it seems.

I've been seriously considering getting a 650 Special someday and making triplets!!

[prometheus578]

"You've got to be kidding me!"

Now I know someone's gonna write in a call me an idiot, but...

I've seen a lot of different style hard bags and such. Did they actually make hard bags like this? I mean... I had never considered taking my suitcases out of the closet and mounting them on my bike. But why not... sort of makes sense, I suppose.
Nice lookin' bikes, too.

[Pain]

You're not an idiot, and yeah, they really did make bags like that. Samsonite. Like with the gorillia jumping on them.

I have seen pics of xs, goldwings and Kawis with those bags. Someone near me has an xs850 has them mounted, I haven't seen him yet, but the bike is around with some frequency.

[dpotter58]

When I bought my second MS my wife went off and started derougatorally (sp?)refering to the bikes as my twins. I plan on setting one up with thefairing or windshield and bags and leaving one nekid. My girls (15 & 12) are learning to ride without the backrest. They aren't real happy about it, but I also like the look with nothing on it.

[John]

Nice looking set of sin twisters...I mean twin sisters. It's funny, I have a set of twin daughters. Which one has the pipes that I sold you?

[dpotter58]

The one in the front. They cleaned up nice. I'm going for triplets. And a doghouse...

[John]

If I didn't know that you lived in Maryland, I would swear that you lived in an old farmhouse in some part of New England. I say that because of the big old farm house in the background of the pic. That and the fact that there doesn't appear to 10 houses between you and the the old farmhouse next door tells me that you live out in the boonies. Any active dairy farms nearby? How do you like the 'Dairy-air' as we used to call it where I grew up in Maine ?

[dpotter58]

I am in the boonies of Southern Maryland. Those are my closest neighbors but there are some others to the left of the pic about the same distance. I have about 8.5 acres with lots of woods and the surrounding properties are not able to perk and no more connections to the small treatment plant here. No dairy farms but I am the Superintendent of a wastewater treatment facility so....

[John]

' Nuff Said!

[DiverRay]

JW, so you beat me out on the bags!!!
I was going for them as they are made for the standard.
Enjoy them, and now you'll have to use them on a trip out west.
Ray

[JWSanders]

Yeah, I had never seen Samsonite bike luggage either, then all of a sudden 2 sets of them show up on Ebay. There were posts here about both of them too, I think.

Actually, these wern't the same ones as the ones that were on that standard. They were selling at around the same time though. The pictures in the auction had them on a special, even though they were probably made for a standard. There's only 2 holes that are off, where they mount to the side of the fender.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=4641408974

I kinda dig them, they're fairly unique. They do look a little odd, but they are designed very well and will hold a LOT of stuff. They look a bit nicer with the covers on. And of course, they are "Gorilla tough"

I kept looking at the Vetter setup of the time, but it looks to much to me like those flying motorcycles from the old Battlestar Galactica TV show. Just a bit too out there. Not to mention very pricey. If I can find a nice set of factory bags at a reasonable price someday I might get them, but I'm not holding my breath.

I don't really want to run with the bags all the time though, and this looks like it will be fairly easy to make "quick-changable". It would be really easy to adapt these mounts to the nice newer hard bags you can get on the cheap on Ebay, too. Plenty of options.