I only had the small plate for my bike and wanted a PD version, they are all but impossible to find so I deiced to make one. First and foremost I want to thank all my friends at Micatech for their help in getting me the raw materials. (Visit their website and buy some of their great panniers!!) I got a template from The Raven and found a few more on here. I took them all mixed and matched and drew up one in AutoCAD. I used 6061 T6 aluminum..very hard to bend so I annealed it first. Here is the cutout flat plate. Next were the dimples for the mounting screws, I didn't want them to protrude under the plate and didn't care for the socket and hammer method to make them, I'm not that good to get them all even. I made up a punch and die for that purpose. I drilled pilot holes then just used a hydraulic press to put in the dimples. Finished product, it's mounted solid for now but I'm going to look into using rubber grommets and shoulder bolts.
Awesome. W/O the rubber grommets my guess is that it's going to resonate at some RPM range. More than likely a range like 3500-4500 that you use all the time. I might know someone who has 4 grommets and 4 old screws in a box of old parts in Montana. Tom
Serious question here...would the battery holder box rubber isolators work? Two benefits if it did. -Isolation from vibes -not needing to thread rethread into the butter material oil pan and risking stripping.
Nice job! I'm going to have to bookmark this thread; I might want to use that punch and die setup sometime. That's kickass! My take on the stock setup is that it absorbs a certain amount of shock. I'm going to get a set with my next order.
Been thinking same thoughts on my '84. Need a more robust skid plate. Looks like a straightforward fabrication. Thanks.
Nice work, especially the punch and die with the locating pin. So you have the file as a dxf. ? just curious why you didn't put the holes in the cad file?
Sweet skid plate and dimples!! I've been ripping through every type of 6mm rubber mount, which is bigger than the battery mount. I think a hidden bolt with bellvelle spring washers might be the solution. Maybe use shoulder bolts through a shock mount tunnel like stock.
What? No build thread for the punch and die? They look like a very nice piece of work. Nice work and thanks for posting.
I looked at vibration isolators and could still go that way. I think the battrery box ones might be a bit on the small side.
The holes are in the cad file, I marked them roughly on the flat blank before annealing. As a final check I used my small skid plate as a pattern to redrill the holes to size. The pilot holes are smaller than 6 mm as they stretch a bit when the dimples are put in. I have it as .dwg, but can save it .dxf