Over the years since our trip, we've been pleased to have lots of emails from all over the World. The most frequent question has been "How exactly did you build those jerry-can holders ?"

I decided to make this page to give a bit more detail for those who are planning to make similar racks.

1. Cheap

2. Fairly easy to make

3. Maintainable without welding

4. THEY WORKED !

So here is the inside story of the racks, I hope it helps, and as always, please email me ( paul at evynco dot com ) if you have any questions.

The Problem

Actually two problems, in the Australian Outback and in other remote areas of the World, you need to carry enough fuel and water to allow for the distances involved and to leave a margin for safety in case you get lost or encounter other problems which halt your progress.

Take a look at the rear footrests on your bike, they are mounted either on a triangular tubular steel frame,
or on the later bikes, a cast aluminium frame. Either way the technique is very similar.

You can see the difference in this 'before' shot.

With the aim of keeping the weight low, it was obvious that this was the place to mount the racks.

TECHNIQUE

Firstly I took off the rear footrests, but left the subframes in place.

Then I bolted a flat steel bar (340 x 40 mm) from the top bolt that holds the subframe to the frame, running towards the rear of the bike, horizontally.

Then I connected the rear of that bar down to the hole where the rear footrest would have been, using a 190 x 150 x 25 steel angle.
The other two angle brackets were smaller 100 x 120 x 20 mm.

Note: They needed to be narrow enough to fit in the bracket where the rear footrest would normally be. In fact it's a tight fit and while it was easy to bend the footrest bracket slightly on the 1990 bike (steel) it is a little dangerous to do that with the later bikes (aluminium). Be careful !

This is the basic structure. By using steel right-angle brackets as shown in the next photo, I ended up with three 'spikes' sticking out the side of the bike. One where the rear footrest would have been and one at each end of the 340mm x 40mm steel bar. It easier to see what I mean if you look at the photo and imagine it before the T-shaped ali straps are fitted.

In this photo, the 190 x 150 x 25 and the 100 x 120 x 20 diagonal angles are shown apart for clarity, but they should be bolted together.

The final part of this first phase is to get some aliminium strap (25 mm wide) and bend it to shape, a 'C' shape at the top and an 'L' shape at the bottom, with the three ends returning towards the bike. (This is hard to describe !)

Again, study the photo above carefully.

Finally, for strength, I added the diagonal brace you can see in the photo below, it runs from the main steel bar up to a nut behind the side panel, near the exhaust. I used ali as it's easy to work and is strong enough in tension like this.

Here is a picture of the finished rack on the 1993 bike.

Note: The front angle bracket on the later bike is connected NOT to the top footrest hanger bolt, as it is on the earlier bike, but to another hole, slightly above. See arrow.

You will need to replace the standard bolts where the footrest hangers attach to the frame with longer ones where you are using these to also attach the racks.

All these materials should be available at large hardware shops.

Tools and fixings.

Ok, two things here.

1. Steel is HARD ! Unless you are well equipped with tools, you are going to have trouble drilling it.
   I managed by simply drilling out the existing holes in the steel bar I bought, although this was very difficult and will ruin drill bits.
2. I used high tensile bolts. Guess what ? high tensile bolts are HARD ! I went through a lot of hacksaw blades and spilled a lot of blood. My advice would be to get either a hand-held grinder or a pair of bolt-cutters.

Padding

Of course you'll need a lot of padding between the racks and the containers. For this I used several layers of foam pipe-lagging. (Normally used to wrap around plumbing pipes). Also bits of high density foam and a lot of plastic cable-ties to hold it all in place. You'll figure this out.

In the end, I wasn't happy with just this padding so.....

I bought two plastic tool trays, the kind with a handle moulded in, for carrying a few tools around. Then I cut them down until I was left with only the trays which were just the right size to fit under the jerry cans as a bit of extra support.

Note: They had fallen off or cracked up by the end of the trip. Really, as long as the lower, central bar is heavily padded so that it doesnt cut into the containers, you'll be right.