Saddlebags
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How's this for a cryptic picture?  Here's the story:  I needed a mount for the crash bar in the rear as well as mounting a plate that holds the bags at the bottom rear.  If you look at the bottom picture on page two you can see what the original mount was-- a flat strap.  I was so enamored with my strut idea I didn't want to run a plain flat strap down for this mount.  A little scrounging around the parts pile and I find a pair of big bike struts.  Go ahead and cry you hog prima donna's, us Sportster guys spit on your tears-- yup-- I'm cutting up them big bike parts too. One of the strut mounts was in the way of where I had to cut.  It was held in with a little spot weld (maybe they were aftermarket).  A bolt held in a vise inserted into the mount and a little leverage and the mount breaks off easily.
This is going to look so good.  Better yet, the strut will give side to side structure which the bags need down low.  Not only that but the big bike struts have a 3/8 hole in the end that is the exact size of the stud in the crash bars.  Life is good.  Here that howling sound?  The big bike people crying.  Ha ha, I laugh at their anguish.  To get these bags mounted I would have cut a generator Shovelhead in half. 
There was a ton of eyeballin' and cogitatin' and calculatin' to get the length of the strut right.  Here I am cutting off the flange where this strut will mate to the first struts I built.  I hope your dad told you the carpenter's motto:  "Measure twice, cut once, you can't make a board longer."  Fortunately we can weld a strut longer but why do it when it only makes the po' folk cry with envy?
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