Installation of Sprint ST Pannier Rails PDF Print E-mail
Written by Daniel Hienzsch   
Friday, 08 June 2007
Page 3 of 3


Getting the rails on is somewhat tricky.  They go outside the frame of the bike, outside the strengthening bracket, but inside the passenger foot pegs.  So, where to when three things have to align all at once.  Well, I start in the middle.  I get the center of the pannier rail loosely fitted against the frame of the bike using the bolts.  A nice place to get the bolts to is just as the nylon of the nylock starts to bite.  Stop there and you'll have plenty of play to work with.

Mount the center first
Mount the center first


Now move to the passenger foot peg.  There are two tiny bolts that mount the rail to the inside of the foot peg and they take a 5/16" socket.  The rest of the bike is metric... and these are 5/16" bolts.  I am at a loss.  Anyway, with the center nice and loose, it shouldn't be too hard to line everything up.  Probably hard... but not too hard.  Again, make sure that they are attached loosely so that you can move the rail in and out along the threads a little.  Be careful not to get too crazy with moving the rail or you might grind the threads a little and that would be bad... but hey, this thing is made out of metal so go ahead and manhandle it a little if you have to.
Image
Image


Now go back to the end of the bike and have a look at the situation.  Chances are, your bolt holes aren't lined up with where the bolts are supposed to pass.  In my case I only have to through the strengthening bracket into the spacing block, but I think the OEM brackets are even more complicated.  I firmly believe that the only way to get this to work and line up is brute force.  Remember, be careful of the loose threads at teh other two mounting points, but to get these to line up, grab a nice strong screw driver and jam it into the hole and drag that SOB around until you can hold it in position and get a bolt started on it.
Everything is lined up
Everything is lined up


Once you've got that started, make sure you can get all the bolts finger tight then in the same order you started in, tighten everything down to their torque values.  Be very careful with the bolts that go into the foot peg.  The foot peg is aluminum and could very well strip out.  For me, I had the machinist use a very strong alloy so that it would accept a fair amount of torque, but don't sit on the wrench.  This stuff needs to be tight, but not crazy tight.

When its' all done though, you have the satisfaction of sitting back, looking at it... and realizing that you now get to turn the bike around and do the other side!
Rails Finally Installed
Rails Finally Installed



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