I'm setting up to fit a sidecar to my K100RT. Originally the plan was to remove the fairing completely but now I'm thinking that I'll retain the upper fairing at least to keep the headlight, indicators and other bits. The problem is that I remember with the last sidecar I had on at RT the fairing and mounts ended up being destroyed on dirt roads and crappy sealed roads and I had to tie it together with a dozen or more cable ties to get home.

So, has anybody successfully reinforced the fairing and mounts? At the moment I'm thinking some sort of perimeter frame around the base of the fairing upper and a reinforced spider but am very open to suggestions.

yes have done that mate

the most important is the brackets from the frame down tube (behind the radiator ) to the mid section of the lower of the main fairing

I made mine out of 3x 30 mm steel   and cut a 20 mm hole for the rubber insulators (to fairing mount hole )  and supported it with a larger washer on the top side of the fairing

I have some pictures here but cant up load them at the moment

I did the same for seaniis rig way back

it certainly stiffens up the fairing immensely ,that is ...movement was almost non-existent , but you need a good fairing tree as well ...look at it and either strengthen it up or re-weld any cracks ...
I suspect that earlier attempts of week support brackets let the fairing flex way too much , causing cracking of the front tree , with the flexing it was getting .
could also have been a lay over event as well ...grin  

will be doing similar with an rs based fairing soon , but will be looking at strengthening the under side of the fairing all the way round from tree to those mid support brackets   perhaps 3mm aluminium might be the go

good luck

charlie99 wrote:yes have done that mate

the most important is the brackets from the frame down tube (behind the radiator ) to the mid section of the lower of the main fairing

I made mine out of 3x 30 mm steel   and cut a 20 mm hole for the rubber insulators (to fairing mount hole )  and supported it with a larger washer on the top side of the fairing

I have some pictures here but cant up load them at the moment

I did the same for seaniis rig way back

it certainly stiffens up the fairing immensely ,that is ...movement was almost non-existent , but you need a good fairing tree as well ...look at it and either strengthen it up or re-weld any cracks ...
I suspect that earlier attempts of week support brackets let the fairing flex way too much , causing cracking of the front tree , with the flexing it was getting .
could also have been a lay over event as well ...grin  

will be doing similar with an rs based fairing soon , but will be looking at strengthening the under side of the fairing all the way round from tree to those mid support brackets   perhaps 3mm aluminium might be the go

good luck

G'day Charlie
Aluminium has some merit. I have a part sheet of 3mm checker plate somewhere. Maybe I can shape a support out of that. And yes you are right, the tree broke most of its limbs and the rest fell apart from there. Post some pics of your earlier efforts when you can, I'd be interested to see.

On my first RT (many moons ago) we reinforced the tree by welding all the cracks first, including drilling small holes at the end of the cracks to stop the cracks travelling.  Then strengthened by shaping and welding a piece of 6mm steel rod along the length of the legs of the spider to stop the cracks reoccuring.

It never broke again and in those days I did ride the bike on lots of dirt roads at whatever speed I was happy with.

These days I have the sidecar for that sort of abuse

Al

The tree was in good nick last time I looked so simple reinforcement should be the go.