What to do with your fugly fender

Hi ho Caponoughts, I have just mounted the rear rooster tail catcher to a near vertical position to protect the undertail paint from being sand blasted over time. The project turned out very well and it looks neat and follows the line of the tyre and matches the swingarm hugger clearance to body nicely.

I made up 'L' shaped brackets from scrap 5mm aluminium, drilled 4 holes, made spacers from scrap 2mm aluminium, bought 4x M6x25mm low profile hex hd srews & M6 Nyloc nuts. It mounts solidly, has pannier clearance (just-on left side). I'm quite chuffed at how well it turned out and solved a problem!

Nothing touches the swingarm, it's removable/returnable to original and only cost me the screws as I had the alloy stashed 'for future use' from a hundred years ago. I'll get a photo up soon (sorry to stingy to own a camera and new phone is just that...a phone!)

Next project is to fit a nice tail light guard that I am seeing fitted to Aprilia's on the show room floors - dealer said he'd put one aside for me......

Ps sorry about the quality - originals were 'to many bytes' to upload and I tried scans of b&w prints. Pps Go easy on the fugly to swingarm bolts as they will chew the alloy thread if you screw them in/out too many times - I've locktite'd mine as they were loosing thread and next time I will have to Helicoil them

Road Test Re-positioned Fugly

G'day all, Just back from 1000km weekender and the repositioned fugly worked well, keeping road spray from sandblasting the undertail paint. I had a small scuff mark on the LH pannier bottom edge where the fugly strut bolt just grazed the pannier edge on full compression. Thankfully I had replaced the sharp edged alloy bolt with a rounded allen head bolt from my stash, and now I have replaced that with a low profile hex head M6 bolt that sits flush in the fugly and will give another 1-2 mm clearance to pannier. I could gain more clearance by removing a 2mm spacer that I no longer need as the 16t front sprocket has caused the rear axle to be moved back more, so the mounting bracket will clear the swing arm unaided.....but it will do for now. Ps I used Scotch Velco to secure covers over the gap to the hugger and they keep road spray from directly striking the body/suspension. There is less force on the fugly bolts now the fugly is not trying to lever itself off over bumps, however I have replaced them with M6 steel hex heads just in case (see posts on fugly failures). Cheers

Fugly adjusted to look less awkward

Just an update, it was raining the other day, so I made a couple of new brackets and positioned the 'keg' fender back a handspan. It looks better with a slight rearwards angle on the uprights. It worked really well in the vertical position, keeping crud off the undertail, but I am short of chain adjustment (16t front sprocket) and will need to remove a link to bring the rear axle into the middle of the swingarm adjustment range. So new brackets can cope with sliding forward 20mm (I think) when the time comes to shorten the chain. A plus was that the pannier has heaps of clearance now and the keg retains it's clearance to the underbelly/tail hardware....so it's all smiles! Will post a photo one day.