I've bought Yamaha pannier rails and panniers, but there's no instructions. Is there anywhere I can download pannier rail installation instructions?

And how do the panniers lock on to the rails?

There's only one key, can I get a spare?

Tim

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Turn the key one way and the red lever flips open at the back. Pushing the lever down with seperate the long plastic bars on the back of the pannier at the saem time as pushing the square thumb slide at the top which shows a green square. Make sure there clean so they can slide open and dont force the lever or it will break. Put the box on the rail with the 2 long parts wide open pressing the back bottom locating part (bottom rear of the box) over the rear footrest rubber. I glued the rubbers on to avoid then coming off. Push the red lever up and the rails close................ if you cant work it out let me knwo and i can post some pics ...any key cutter should be able to do duplicates

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Previous bikes:TS50 - RD125LC - XT250 - ZXR750L3 - BMW 650 Funduro - BMW 1100GS - XT660Z Tenere

I took some pictures when I took mine off last year. There might be some steps missing, and I'm doing this from memory - but here goes!

Step 1

Remove the grab rails, take out the rubber covers and remove the bolts








Step 2.


Take off the seat (should start by doing that I suppose!).

Remove the plastic cover from the rear rack




Step 3.

Remove the tail piece. First take off the cable ties (circled) and unplug (there is a picture further on that shows these plugs) the lights and indicators.

Take out the four screws as shown.



The tail piece comes away.




Step 4.

You are now ready to fit the rails.

They fit here:





Using these bolts holes at the front (the light conectors are circled)




On the right hand side you have to pull out the elecectrical bits to get to the bolt.




The rear bolts are here:




As you can see they get alot of corrosion up there.

Finally, the lower mount. It just bolts into place. The Yamaha bolts are a bit weak, when I removed them one snapped (again corrosion on the bolts). You'd be better off replacing with a Stainless Steel set, as I did when I sold them.







Hope this helps a bit.

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Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

It is not necessary to remove the tail. I can put the bolt and screw it together with my fingers through the small gap betwen plastic cover and exhaust in the rear bolting area.

How did you get a socket onto the nut to tighten it ? I couldn't.

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Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

There's a trick which I've found somewhere on this forum:

Screw the front of the pannier rail to the frame, but don't tighten it.

use a tiewrap (?) and lead it through the nut. Then lead the tiewrap through the mounting hole and pull then nut against the frame. Now use your thinnest finger to hold the nut into position against the frame while retrieving the tiewrap. Then bring the rear of the pannier frame into position (still holding the nut in position) and fix it with the bold. It's still not easy to reach the nut with an angled socket driver (?) but can be done... and you don't need to disassemble the rear.

Ah... it was Colros who came with that trick: http://www.xt660.com/showpost.php?p=114061&postcount=10

HJ

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Riding the Mad Mule !! ... no more... went orange...

The nut was tightened with hand fingers as much as it gets, then i have tightened it only from the outer side, the inner bolt stays on place and it wont spin with the bolt. You just pres it as much as you can with the finger while tightening from the out side. Its close, but can be done.
My fingers and hand are average man size.

Fair enough, guess I should've pointed out that the photos I took were of the removal, not fitting - I just reversed the process. In any case, it takes a couple of minutes to remove the tail piece, and the while you've got it all apart you can lube up the bolts to stop them siezing in the future.

I can see how the suggested methods will help with fitting the mounts, but I don't think they would for removal, especially with corroded bolts.

Each to thier own though. Tim, I'm sure between the posts you can sort out which is best for you. A collective solution!

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Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Many thanks guys. This is what I just love about Internet forums.

I'm flying back to Spain on Tuesday taking one of the panniers with the rails as hold luggage, the other as 'hand' luggage. The bike is stored with Hana and David of MotoAdvenTours who have a fully-equipped workshop (including a tyre changing machine) so with the great instructions I should be on my way without delay and with the panniers and new TKC80s fitted.

I'm then heading into the melting pot of Morocco. If I can stand the heat I'm thinking of traversing the Rekkam Plateau and heading east to Figuig on the Algerian border. I've just been into Maplin and bought a digital thermometer with a remote 'outdoor' sensor that I can stick somewhere cool on the bike so I can track shade temperatures.

Tim

__________________
"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

Access the Morocco GS Knowledgebase

Just fitted the Yam pannier rails, and have to say I quickly gave up trying to do it with the tail in place � in the end it only took but a few moments to take it off anyway. And once access is really easy, plus I could copperslip all the bolts that hold it together to avoid future problems.

One thing though. For a bike that's likely to find itself in the middle of nowhere, who thought it would be a good idea to make the rail mounting points quite that inaccessible?, and the lower mount at the footpeg is held on with two different sized bolts requiring two different hex drives.

Sometimes the mind boggles with this thing.

Still, it's a neat setup for when the cases aren't attached, and given that they'll only be on the bike for road use I'm quite happy with the way they're put together (at least my locks seem smooth enough).