Home made Ventura rack brackets

I received an email sent asking me about the brackets I made to suit a Ventura rack and if I could pass on the info.. no problem.....

The story was that I had a Ventura bag/rack on my previous bike and when I bought the Bandit wanted to fit the same rack - problem was that I was going to have to purchase a whole new bag and rack just to get the brackets that hold the horizontal and vertical part of the rack in place... about $300 worth (I think) and way too much for what I wanted.

So I set about thinking how to fashion my own brackets and fit them to the same mounts as the rear 'grab' handle which I wanted to keep (I believe that if I had bought the Ventura gear that the grab handle would have had to be removed).

What I came up with was a triangular shaped piece of mild steel about 4mm thick with spacers braised on the inside of both the left and right piece and which fit inside the recesses of the grab handle mounting bolts. (The front spacer is a slightly different diameter and length to that of the rear one) - I'm lucky in that I have a metal lathe and could make these spacers to the exact size I wanted. I also made the rear (vertically mounted) post which the original rack slides into. The 'post' is also braised onto the triangular shaped plate and has a 'grub' screw in the rear of it to tighten onto the rack and prevent movement/vibration. When doing all this I measured the distance I wanted the vertical posts to be apart and calculated the length that the spacers were required to be to give me the distance to fit the width of the rack. As the triangular pieces are 'mild' steel I was able to bend them a little for minor adjusting so the rack slid into it easily. Obviously I had to go to a 'bolt' warehouse and purchase longer 'allen' head bolts which took the place of the original ones which held the grab handle in place.

I use the rack nearly every time I ride and have had quite a bit of weight in the bag at times with no sign of any problems - although when I'm not carrying a pillion I turn the bag around so it sits on the pillion part of the seat (Hence the silver insulation tape around the grab handle to protect the paint)

Hope the photos help anyone who decides to try to give this project a go (didn't realise how dirty the bike was until I looked at the photos on the computer!)

Very neat & they look stronger too

How come you put the rack so far back? The rack on my bike sits just behind the seat. I would have thought that would create a lot of leverage on the mounting bolts

whitey1 wrote:How come you put the rack so far back? The rack on my bike sits just behind the seat. I would have thought that would create a lot of leverage on the mounting bolts

Perhaps you're correct and it may have been better to have a shorter mounting arm.... although I didn't want it to be touching the grab handle so moved it back far enough to avoid that. I used 'high tensile' bolts which have proven over the past 2 years of use that they and the mount have been strong enough to support quite a few heavy kilos in the bag. No sign of any movement on the mounts - all bolts tight - so at this stage no issue with it...

I found the standard ventura rack sits a bit close to the pillion ( if you carry one of coarse ) so the extra room may be welcome .The pillion is also then not so likely to put all their weight against it // my two bobs worth

Does anyone finds it a bit annoying the bag doesnt sit flat on the seat with the rack
faceing backwards ?

bhoffo`s avatar picture looks like he`s got his rack angle about right to fix that

paul wrote:bhoffo`s avatar picture looks like he`s got his rack angle about right to fix that

It sits nice and flat though I have wrapped some foam and silver insulation tape around the grab handle to prevent wear marks from the bag resting on it as well...