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I finally finished my vintage rear rack. In sequence with the photos, I started with an old rack from a 70 Yamaha CT175.
I cut off the lower mounting ears leaving only the support loops. I cut the tubing arms and extended them with round bar stock that I shaped to wrap around the back of the seat and bolt to the two holes that are on each side of the frame. I thru bolted them with tubing spacers long enough for the arms to clear the seat and frame.
Then I added two lower support arms using tubing brackets that I cut off the front fender brackets from the same CT175. Again I extended th arms using round bar stock that I shaped to line up with the holes near the top of the rear shocks. I thru bolted them using a rubber tubing sleeve to act as an insulator around the bolt.
Once I was satisfied with the fit I taped and clamped the connections on the newly fabricated upper and lower arms. I made a jig to hold the proper positions by fitting a spacer between the arms and wrapped the upper and lower spacers with stout wire to maintain the correct distance between the upper and lower arms.
I took them to a friend who welded my connections in six places. I ground and filed the welds smooth, then sandblasted the entire rack to etch the chrome finish for painting. I used self etching primer, then painted it with VHT engine enamel (cast aluminum) and clear coated it with VHT clear gloss engine enamel.
The end result left me with uniform gaps all around between the rear lights, seat, and frame. The seat can be removed with no issues and I only gave up 2 inches at the back of the seat. The rack is extremely sturdy and works well to camouflage the rear light cluster.
Total investment.....3 cans of paint. I already had the pieces leftover from my CT175. The round bar stock came from the scrap bin at work. You can find these racks on eBay for as cheap as $25 if you find one that is rusty. In good shape they might go for about $65. They used similar racks on all the CT and DT enduros in the 70s. I think it matches the look they were going for on the SCR.
I cut off the lower mounting ears leaving only the support loops. I cut the tubing arms and extended them with round bar stock that I shaped to wrap around the back of the seat and bolt to the two holes that are on each side of the frame. I thru bolted them with tubing spacers long enough for the arms to clear the seat and frame.
Then I added two lower support arms using tubing brackets that I cut off the front fender brackets from the same CT175. Again I extended th arms using round bar stock that I shaped to line up with the holes near the top of the rear shocks. I thru bolted them using a rubber tubing sleeve to act as an insulator around the bolt.
Once I was satisfied with the fit I taped and clamped the connections on the newly fabricated upper and lower arms. I made a jig to hold the proper positions by fitting a spacer between the arms and wrapped the upper and lower spacers with stout wire to maintain the correct distance between the upper and lower arms.
I took them to a friend who welded my connections in six places. I ground and filed the welds smooth, then sandblasted the entire rack to etch the chrome finish for painting. I used self etching primer, then painted it with VHT engine enamel (cast aluminum) and clear coated it with VHT clear gloss engine enamel.
The end result left me with uniform gaps all around between the rear lights, seat, and frame. The seat can be removed with no issues and I only gave up 2 inches at the back of the seat. The rack is extremely sturdy and works well to camouflage the rear light cluster.
Total investment.....3 cans of paint. I already had the pieces leftover from my CT175. The round bar stock came from the scrap bin at work. You can find these racks on eBay for as cheap as $25 if you find one that is rusty. In good shape they might go for about $65. They used similar racks on all the CT and DT enduros in the 70s. I think it matches the look they were going for on the SCR.
