Will be very interested to know how the fitting goes
Well, it would have been a fair bit easier if the holes in the guard had matched up better with the ones in the frame, but as it was I spent a happy hour attempting to fasten 4 countersunk screws, inventing a number of new swearwords in the process. But back to the beginning...
The original skid-plate came off easily enough via its four screws, and when I offered up the GiT guard it was clear that the two OEM plastic side guards needed to come off too. In fact, the clearance was so tight that I couldn't even leave the side guards' screws in their holes, which I sealed up with silicone instead to stop water ingress.
Normally I'd fit this kind of thing by doing all screws up finger-tight, then nipping them up when everything was aligned. But when the front and back screws were loosely in place, the two middle ones were about 3-4mm out and there just wasn't enough play in the guard to get those in. And, although they weren't yet tight, the right-hand side of the guard was already firmly resting on one of the case screws. Not great.
I took the front and back screws out again and fitted the two center ones instead, which gave me half a mm clearance over the cover bolt and only let me get the rear screw in once the middle two were at their loosest, barely 2 threads catching. The front one was nowhere near the hole in the frame by this point, but with the now redundant mounting holes for the OEM side guard filled with silicone and a ride planned for Sunday I was in no mood to try and reverse the operation.
I'll have a go at elongating the holes in the GiT guard once it comes off for cleaning and I've got more time, but for now I'll just grumble at the unhppy mix of Japanese and British engineering that's made such a pig's ear out of the relatively simple task of making 4 holes meet up. Thought for the day: the more I fiddle with other bikes the more I appreciate my Beemer.
m.
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