Questions about pannier mounting

Aesthetics aside, the lower and further forward the better for stability but gets in the way of the passenger and even worse is the catching and breaking your leg/foot. The higher and further back the worse stability wise but provides plenty of clearance for your legs to not get caught in them. It's a trade off. I went with narrow boxes rotated slightly and a little higher than most to ensure plenty of clearance. Here is a shot that shows my pannier placement somewhere south of Green river Utah.

I have Touratech standard mounting brackets and sometimes I feel that they're tilted too far forward. But if I want to tie another bag across the back they seem just right. It's not like I could do anything about the angle without a bunch of grinding and welding...

That road is beautiful

Highway 49. Over 300 miles from end to end with the majority of it wonderful turns like that. We're spoiled in Northern California with a lot of great twisty roads.

If you have not already looked, you can check out many pics of Metal Mule luggage on (gasp) BMWs in the following link from BestRest:
https://bestrest.smugmug.com/gallery/6041926_Q6w7d#!i=378392157&k=4r6HPHZ

Another site for reviewing luggage fitment is the caribou cases website
http://www.cariboucases.com/

The photos for both the Metal Mule and Caribou Cases show their luggage with level or a small forward inclination.
As others have mentioned, please post pics when you are done.

Cheers.

Looks sportier with them tilted down in the front. Looks faster.

I like them tilted down a little, all the heavy junk rolls to the front.

Just wear your ball cap on straight.

I decided to split the difference between the angle of the tail rack and passenger seat. The height of the front of the cases is at the bottom of the seat.
Lid catches made from vinyl coated 1/16" cable from Home Depot, made loops with homemade crimps from 1/4" copper tu
bing covered with heat shrink. One end is riveted tight, the other a little loose to be able remove and open the lid completely.
The Happy Trails attaching pucks. I undersized the drill holes in the cases by 1mm to help with water tightness.
Overall, it was a fairly simple install. The right side rack didn't line up well with the mounting holes and was tweaked out at the bottom; I employed my rubber swing press to fix that. The upper mounting knobs are really big so I'll see if I can make something a little more sleek. I am also going to counter sink some thick washers and use flathead sockets screws to replace the lower puck mounting screws. The overall mounting seems pretty secure, but we'll see what the road has to say:eek1 One last thing...I didn't focus on them, but if you look close, you'll see the fastgun locks I'm using; I had to do a little dremeling to accommodate the diameter of both pieces of the lock.

Lookin good mate, 990R colours my fave.

Thank you very much.
Another issue has presented itself: when I started stacking gear about to see how everything's gonna fit, I noticed the turn signals are liable to get covered easily. Any thoughts on this?

I was going through the pics again and I'm a little embarrassed about the clutter; my thought is, since she doesn't want to go riding, think I should ask the wifey to clean up the garage a little?

No prob as long as you are going forward, I think you will find you won't have an issue.

... a working man cave don't be embarrassed about that

....let us know visiting hours

Nah, she thought it was pretty funny.

A 990 Adv with stock signals and pipes will only have the turn signals covered if whatever you're putting on there sags quite a bit, and then you're in danger of touching the exhaust pipes. I tied a duffel bag onto mine with no issues of covering the turn signals, even though the bag was right above them.

You should always have a clean garage. You never know when you will be posting a pic of it on ADV.