...and actually spent money. Does this mean I'm no longer a full-fledged KLR cheap-skate?
I've spent lots of time looking at different mounts and bags for the KLR. I have a set of the Kawasaki soft bags, but they are small and tend to melt the right side panel from holding in the heat. Yes, I jammed a beer can under the plastic, and just the bag over that held in enough heat to melt the side panel anyway. /shrug.
Sport-tour here in Cincinnati (actually, in Sharonville) carry the SW Motech removable mounts, and Givi bags. The mounts ran $240, and I went with the E36s (9.5 gallons of capacity) at about $135 each. Yes, I could have done Pelican Boxes, but they're not much cheaper (anything that size runs about $100), and they would not have been nearly as easy to mount/dismount as the Givis. GI Ammo cans are HEAVY, and that's just stupid. Then again, nobody called ME a rocket scientist.
Installation of the SW Motech mounts took about 2 hours. The instructions were adequate; I would have liked to have seen a couple more images of what spacer goes where; I only mis-installed a spacer once and had to remove/reinstall. If I did it again on another KLR, I'd guess I could probably shave half an hour off that install time. Everything fit together well; I was impressed with the quality of the welds, the powder coating on the metal, and how everything went together. I put things together loosely initially, as I expected problems with aligning all the pieces from other people's install stories... no problem.
After looking at all the options and complaints about cheap solutions (which usually aren't cheap in time or ultimate cost), I'm glad I went this way. If anyone has questions.. feel free to fire away.
v/r
Drachenfels
