Supplier: Thunderbike
Website:
http://www.thunderbike.co.nz/Price: AU$38.00/pair at time of writing.
These items allow you to fit any HD type mirror with a 3/8" thread to Triumph Americas & Speedmasters. They're manufactured from Stainless Steel.
Took four working days to deliver these by post from New Zealand to Australia which I was happy with. The price might seem high compared to the metric ones at Ma's Cycles, but actually is pretty reasonable when you convert from US$ to AU$ and add on the shipping charges (Thunderbike's prices include shipping).
My first impression was that they looked well made. Of course the first thing I did was screw them into the mirrors. Oddly one of them wouldn't screw all the way into either mirror, leaving about a 2mm gap. I wasn't overly concerned about this. I first fitted the other one to the left side. I found nothing on the website or with the adapters about removing/leaving the standard sleeve in the mount so I tried tapping it into place with the sleeve in (with a socket over the exposed thread on the adapter to protect it). I soon found out the sleeve needed to be removed. OK then. Even with the sleeve out it still required light tapping which is probably to give a firm fit and avoid vibration. Once I'd figured out the sleeve had to be removed fitting the left side only took 5 minutes, with a few extra minutes to get it all aligned and tightened up. The next issue I encountered was that the hole for the standard screw wasn't quite deep enough to use with the standard washer. Fortunately my mirrors came with some flat and spring washers that I used instead to overcome this. If you wanted to you could also cut a thread off the end of the screw.
Thinking I'd be upstairs drinking beer in another 10 minutes I removed the right mirror & sleeve, however my beer had to wait over an hour. Tap tap tap... nothing. Wouldn't go in. TAP TAP TAP... still nothing!
TAP TAP BL00DY TAP! Still nothing!!
The adapter was simply too thick to fit into the mounting hole. I spent the next 20 minutes with the adapter on the bench-grinder's wire brush carefully bringing it down in size till I could
just get it into place. This of course was made more annoying by the front brake reservoir stopping the mirror turning more than 180 degrees so I then spent the next 10 minutes turning the mirror half a turn, then turning the (very tight) adapter half a turn with a spanner, then back to the mirror and so on. Happily once I'd gotten it all in place the mirror suddenly decided it was going to go all the way onto the thread, so at least the original problem resolved itself.
Conclusion: The first one gets 9/10 with the only issues being that it would have been nice to be told whether I had to leave or remove the sleeve, and either the hole should have been deeper or they should have supplied the required washers. The second one only gets 3/10, and only that much because it
eventually worked as advertised, after some brutalisation on my part. I know I should have returned it but I'm impatient - so sue me. Assuming that this was simply a quality control glitch that Thunderbike can overcome in future these are a good product at a reasonable price, however without this issue being resolved potential buyers should be aware that they might have to return (or brutalise) oversize parts.
