Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums Accessories HD Fairing - Say Hello to my little friend

I call him Darth Fairing.

The FAIRING is called Darth mind, not the bike. Naming your bike is a bit odd.

Nice,I like it. How about some more pics on how you mounted it.

Thats so cool, I was just thinking about doing that!
need more pics please

"Worlds collide, Jerry. WORLDS COLLIDE!"

Veeeery interesting....!

I like...now you need hardbags to go with it.

EEeeeeeeeeeewwwwwww!

Nice! Now, as others have said, more info and pics please.

Looks good Bill.

I've had the windshield off my British Hardley for the past few hundred miles. Feeling 'sporty' I suppose...

Da-- , what was I thinking? It goes back on today. Call me a geezer, but I likes me some windshield.

Hey Bill!! Like Zmilin said hard bags perhaps a trunk?By the way,didn't you have a light bar?Nice job brother.Ride safe,Charlie.

Now that looks different and I kind of like it. As the others have said Bill you need to post more pics so we can see from all angles.

Hello, Bill's little friend.

Here you go Bill, as requested. I figured if you wanted silver and green I would just do it this way. Oh yeah, black objects are kinda hard to add color too so excuse the fakeness of it...ahah

now that will bring it together nicely!

you know what would make it better i think is if you moved the headlight out more so it fitted flush with the edge of the fairing.

it doesnt look like a frightened turtle this way...the 2" headlight extention could possibly work. But it'd be hard to measure what distance you need because of the angle and all.

ok, I put in a couple of hours on this today. First the results:


I have to say, it looks rather better in person, in some of these shots it looks like the poor thing has gotten something on its face and it can't get it off. Or maybe like when my daughters were little and one would dress up in a suit jacket way too big with the shoulders out to "there".


Mounting it solidly was amazingly easy. The fairing mounts to two uprights that fit perfectly well on the mounts for my memphis shades windscreen. There is more than enough flexibility to rearrange the brackets to fit the fairing onto the uprights. You can see the HD bracket beside my memphis shades screen below. And next to it you see the HD bracket mounted to the forks.


I stopped at this point because I wanted to road test it but I think it needs to be moved around somewhat for appearance and function - I'll move it up an inch and tilt it back a bit more. Amazingly, it doesn't interfere with the speedo. It hides the signals obviously and it might need to be notched for the right hand mirror. I'll leave it on the bike for a couple of days and maybe play a bit more but it will have to come off as i get serious about getting ready for the seattle trip. I'm going to want my reliable memphis shades for that trip.

I learned quite a bit about these fairings in planning and doing this. There are three styles of HD fairing. This is the earliest type, used into the mid-80s - the windshield is completely separate from the fairing and mounts to those same uprights - there are no inner fairings although there are radio mounts. The next type used into the mid 90s mounts the windshield to the fairing and has optional inner fairings. The final type basically mounts the outer fairing to the inner.

I started with this type because I got one cheap but from what I now see the second type would be a better choice. I think they would mount the same way to the forks and I'd be more comfortable that the windscreen would still mount ok.

As I said I road tested it today around my neighborhood. Certainly no interference or wobbliness but pretty hard to judge usefulness without a screen. I'll probably try to make or source one in the next couple of weeks. What I'd be looking forward if it worked out would be improved weather protection and wind noise reduction by having the screen closer to the rider and the extended fairing.

Oh, and this would be quick detach by the way. Maybe I'll show up for the nor'east with darth fairing for the road then take him off like a superhero revealing my petite windvest for style!

that looks great Tom. Good Job.

I don't know whether I like the screen or not. It's a bit of a shock to see one on our bikes actually. I reckon though I could really get to like it. It would just be brilliant to have a screen attached so as to give the rider good protection and having one of these screens congers up all sorts of different idea

Yep, nice work Bill and I'll be interested to see how you engineer the vader further too

Thanks for the pics too mate.

thanks Staffo

Here you go bill 2 more color schemes for you....The old picture was easier to change.

You might look like an eagles fan if you pull this off...ahah

Bill do the 90's fairings mount the same way? The wife is interested in more wind protection especially for her hands, so I'm looking into to mounting one of these on her savage.

I believe the 84-95 ones do do although I have never seen one up close. If you look at this pic of the back of one from ebay you see four mounting posts. I believe these would mount to uprights like what mine uses although not exactly the same.


poke around web sites for the suzuki and see if anyone has done it. One thing to check is the fork width of the bike. ours are around 11" and that's about the narrowest I can see working easily.

Here's another pic from a detachable version that looks like it would go easily onto the memphis shades mounts - again, if the forks are wide enough.
ebay listing

Looks like you may need the big bore kit to push that HD fairing through the wind .If you already have not done it.Looks good.

hey BF next time your playing with the photo do us all a favour please and photoshop a screen on to that sucker thankyou

what size are your shocks? How is 2up riding? Any rubbing?

thanks Bill thats better
to be honest when i first saw it pic my thoughts were oh my gawd whats that man thinking

with a shield on it tho dont look so bad at all look forward to seeing the finished result

HD fairing on a Triumph...talk about cross contamination. Although I must admit, paint that baby dark green with a couple of gray racing strips and it would look baaad aasss----!!

Quote:

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thanks Staffo

Here you go bill 2 more color schemes for you....The old picture was easier to change.

You might look like an eagles fan if you pull this off...ahah

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ok so, Darth is coming of the bike for sure tonight - enough diddling around. Here is the final form - His best angle

And two shots that show some of the gory details:


My conclusions so far are that the work was easy, the result is (to me) not bad looking, but not much more functional than my usual memphis shades windscreen.

I had Darth on the highway for a couple of test runs. I imagined there was more wind resistance but i had no trouble maintaining speed. Without lowers there was bad buffeting, with lowers it was about like my Memphis Fats. With the screen just high enough to look over, I got just a bit of wind noise from the top of my helmet - about the same as my Fats. There was for sure less wind on my hands and arms of course. I had imagined that moving the screen closer would make it more effective but I would say that was not correct. There is a bit of that effect within a foot or so of the screen but not enough to matter.


I remember though that it took me many trials and much putzing around to get my Fats right so it could be that Darth has potential yet. I haven't decided what the next step will be. Maybe I'll have a goal of piloting Darth Fairing to the Nor East in september when I'll care more about weather protection.

For those of you who thought Darth Fairing was appalling, I submit his brother ..he who must not be named..

?????????????????? What happened here?

Is that tint street legal?