Had a very wet ride home from work one night last week. Discovered to my dismay in the morning that my baby gearsack bag would serve me better as a rainwater tank than a gear bag, as it let plenty of water in, but didn't let it leak out the bottom.
I rescued all the bits out of the bag to let them dry out, including my wet weather gear (by the time I realised that I'd run into more than just a passing shower, I was soaked, so i just kept motoring home)
Refitted my other rack with the topbox that was at least waterproof, but rattled incessantly and proceded to annoy me from the moment I jumped on the bike to head back into work.
Was telling my tale to one of my workmates who said he had a rack and bag at home that he'd pulled off a bike some years ago, and it was just sitting in his shed gathering dust. He said it was mine if I wanted it. Done Deal!
He brought it in the next day / night? and I thanked him then took it home for a quick inspection. (never look a gift horse in the mouth, at least till you're out of sight of the old owner)
All the zips on the bag looked ok, and a quick squirt with some silicon spray and some gentle forcing of the zips got them working smoothly again in no time. Now to the rack.
It was dusty as hell, but most of the powdercoating was intact with no rust bubbles underneath anywhere. Just had a minor problem with the slide adjusters in the top rail. They'd been hammered in, hard. One had a big mushroom head on it, so they would take some persuading the get them out again.
Took my time, though. Just had the rack in an upturned position all week, and sprayed CRC into the bits every afternoon after work. This weekend, i thought it's had enough soaking and did the old "lock the vicegrip onto the end of the tube as tight as you can possibly get them and give them a hell of a good whack with a big hammer to knock it out" but to no avail. It only succeeded in tearing part of the mushroom head off one side of the tube.
Tonight - Plan B!
Hunted around the garage to find some assorted lengths of tubing and some rod that fitted through the eyes on the end of the slide. Added one bottle jack
^ and pop! The really bad side came loose with a heap of pressure from the jack, and a tap on the side of the rack tubing with a smallish hammer. About a 3 pounder!
^ added a second jack to push out the other slide (this one came easier as it hadn't been driven in as hard)
^ then just pumped them out alternating from side to side to keep them even, till
^ Ta Daaa! Completely removed. Now to strip the rack back for painting, as I mutilated the coating while trying to bash them out as per plan A
^ fuzzy pic shows how badly the end of the slide was mutilated. Just lucky that the eyes were still able to be used for leverage.
Hopefully, this might help someone out there who comes across a similar scenario, without them damaging anything to get them apart, unlike me.
