Wanting to do some touring I knew I needed side racks for panniers, but just didn't want to fork out the $200+ for a set. My son has the identical bike and needs so I decided to build our own racks. The bikes are 2009 KLR 650s. Started by checking out what commercial racks look like, how they are mounted and what they are made from, what I liked and didn't like. I'm fortunate that I have a TIG welder and metal lathe that make certain aspects of the project a bit easier. The easy part are the racks themselves. Started cutting the 3/4" by 0.060" wall square tubing to length and then built a fixture out of some scrap plywood I had laying around to hold the pieces in place. Tacked the side pieces together in the fixture, pulled them out and completed welding them. Next I made another fixture out of wood to position the rack sides for fitting mounting strut over to the bike. Had to get a bit creative with some shims between the tire and one fixture side and some wire to the muffler on the other to keep them perpendicular to the top rack. Checked this with a carpenters square. The bike is just not set up for adding side racks! The factory top rack mounting bolt location is good for one point, picked up one of the passenger foot peg mounts for another and went up under the fender to pick up a third frame mounting point. Some commercial racks only pick up the upper rack mount and some relocate the turn signal and add another mount there. I didn't want to mount to the turn signal location, elected instead for the under fender mount. I used the lathe to turn mounting bosses for the bracket ends, two for the foot peg mount and two for the upper mount, they are counter bored for using socket head screws. The reduced diameter ends fit into the socket for the upper rack bolt. 5/8" diameter 0.058 wall chrome molly tubing was used for the forward braces. After setting up both sides and tacking the forward brackets in place I made the crossover piece using 1/2" square tubing. Made a little fixture for it too. Welded 1/8" flat steel rectangles on the ends to bolt to the rack sides. I put matching pieces on the rack ends, drilled and tapped them for two 6 mm screws. The cross piece was bolted on then the upper mounts were fabricated using 5/8" diameter solid bar stock heated and bent just under a 90 degrees. This was fitted and tack welded to the upper bolt boss and the rack. Next up was the under fender mounting point. For this I purchased 7/8" ID steel split collars, even found them with metric clamping screws - yes I know a bit anal. I stuck these in the lathe - that anality kicking in again, but I have to justify the lathe somehow - and flattened one side of the collars then drilled and tapped a mounting hole for an 8 mm bolt. This pic shows the flattened collars and the rod ends to be welded to the mounting strut. The rod ends were drilled and counter bored for the 8 mm screws formerly holding on the passenger foot peg mounting brackets - recycling! The struts are 5/8" diameter tubing like the front struts. These tubes were mitered to fit up to the rack side and tack welded in place. The complete rack sides were carefully removed and all welding completed moving around the rack doing small parts of each weld to reduce distortion. Then reinstalled to make sure everything still fit, removed and painted. Would like to powder coat, but, want to use them first to make sure everything works properly after panniers are installed. Picked up a pair of ammo cans for the panniers - a work in process. Thanks for looking, hope it inspires others to build their own.
makes me wanna pull out the ole VISA card and order the $200 set JUST KIDDING, very sweet work - I'd put those on my KLR PMR
They look like they were proffessionally made, not by some cheap dumbass with a welder. They look just as good or better than my proffessionally purchased set. Incidently you weld better than my dumb ass Nice job overall
Nice. I've contemplated doing something similar. Question: Can you still get off the side covers with those in place?
This is awesome. But: Build my own??? We have laws preventing such irresponsible behavior, I think. And common, brother: How much (shipped)? Can you remove the right-side cover to service the air filter without removing the rack on that side?
I can remove the side covers without removing the racks, bit tight but with a little jiggling they will come out and go back on.
Sounds good enough. Anybody who rides a KLR a lot in the dirt, where it's dusty, knows how often the filter has to be serviced.
If I lived in your area, I'd let you make a set for my DRZ. Only thing is that I prefer racks for which the square can mount is about 2 or three inches higher than the height you chose. So we'd have to come to some type of consensus on that, before I'd let you make em. They look great. Good job.
