Two years ago I disassembled my pannier latches, cleaned off the grease and relubed with dri slide, and have always been careful in closing the lids and never overloading them. Yesterday I stripped things down again and found three of the plastic mounting "posts" were broken into pieces, and three others were cracked, out of eight mounts (four on each side) for the latch plates.
I have ordered the Franzen combination latches (currently part number 1470-1) to bypass the stock locking system altogether.
But why are the mounts breaking? My theory is that the large plastic inner saddlebag assemblies flex a bit during operation. They are bolted to the frame in the front, and are under the grab rails along the top, but only screwed into the rear fender and taillight assembly in the back. And they are not very stiff at all. But the metal latch plates cannot flex. Its as if the latch plates have the unintended function of "stiffening" the plastic saddlebags. But the plastic mounts were not intended to handle this kind of stress. The greatest stress occurs at the weakest point -- the self-tapping screw holes.
If this theory is correct, lubing the latches and treating the bags carefully may help, but will not address the fundamental design flaw. The posts could eventually crack and break even if you never used the bags.
I have ordered the Franzen combination latches (currently part number 1470-1) to bypass the stock locking system altogether.
But why are the mounts breaking? My theory is that the large plastic inner saddlebag assemblies flex a bit during operation. They are bolted to the frame in the front, and are under the grab rails along the top, but only screwed into the rear fender and taillight assembly in the back. And they are not very stiff at all. But the metal latch plates cannot flex. Its as if the latch plates have the unintended function of "stiffening" the plastic saddlebags. But the plastic mounts were not intended to handle this kind of stress. The greatest stress occurs at the weakest point -- the self-tapping screw holes.
If this theory is correct, lubing the latches and treating the bags carefully may help, but will not address the fundamental design flaw. The posts could eventually crack and break even if you never used the bags.
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