I finally found the old Craig's list pictures. I sold this 450Custom back in May 2013, but my wife put an incredible number of miles on it before getting a real bike. (Sorry guys, this one would not handle wind at highway speeds.) I hope it gives you some ideas, or hope at least. I cranked out this rack because we needed space, lots of it for long trips and garage sales. Remember it's a woman's trunk here.
I found a decent deal on an old GoldWing trunk lid rack made of stainless steel. It was new but imperfect, not totally symmetrical. It had the little curl up in the middle of the rack for protecting the seat back-rest. This made for a good replacement for the stock 450C grab rail. I took that off. Then I found an really good deal on a bag that was designed to go on the Goldwing trunk lid rack. It came with the two pockets on the left and right front, the center rear pocket for maps etc., that HUGE main compartment and a rain cover. It was not ugly, nor a show piece but you could pack the world in it and it was rain-proof. We loved it. I made the side rails out of light 1 inch angle iron. They went where the grab bar came off and only had 1 (creative) bend. They were flexible but still strong enough to move the back of the bike around when you grab the rack. it was a little tricky getting the front mounting pegs of the stainless rack connected to the angle irons. I could have done a better job of that, but I was into getting something done we could use. It also looked pretty good without the bag on it. I have no pictures of that. Here are pictures; they are required for this post. <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-sQUQqPuyD3Y/VQjmnRPBXmI/AAAAAAAAAH4/0oakvENZPQk/s1600/detail2.jpg> <https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-KKFUmemyTGg/VQjmqqfDHPI/AAAAAAAAAIA/ZFoeACQlDF4/s1600/detail3.jpg> <https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-jXyUUjPdONg/VQjms-GKfdI/AAAAAAAAAII/YtvGkqccAWk/s1600/detail4.jpg> <https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-fIpf3ZEHAKA/VQjmkvXBcPI/AAAAAAAAAHw/prU8s1Cy6wY/s1600/detail.jpg> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Nighthawk Motorcycle Lovers!" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nighthawk_lovers. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
