left side engine guard

[mtnsurgtech]

I am thinking of replacing my valve covers using the chromed covers off my parts bike. While taking things off the parts bike for storage I have run into an odd issue. WHile trying to take the right side highway/engine guard it seems the lower bolt won't allow the guard to come off without taking the pipe off. Anyone have any experience with this or a helpful hint. Thanks.

[SIR tricky]

I always have to drop the pipe, thats why I use never seize on the nuts.

You would think there would be a way but I have never found it

[mtnsurgtech]

thanks tricky. I figured if anyone new of a way it would be on here lol

[85GL1200I]

I'm thinking that I loosened my guard and let it fall out of the way, then the cover came off. Probably just a few more turns and it would have fallen off anyhow. View this as an excellent opportunity to give that guard a good polishing.

[bs175dths]

I was going to put this in the Experimental Mods folder and it can be moved there if so decided.

I have always wanted easier access to the valve covers so I could polish and keep them clean.
Dropping the exhaust seemed excessive work for frequent cleaning.
While my bike was down for head gaskets, I decided to take the plunge on an idea……

While the guards were still on the bike, I located a relatively straight section of the portion of the guard which fell through the headers and marked it half-way along this relatively straight section.
I removed the guards, cut at the line marked and inserted a section of brass piping (hardware store) long enough to stick out of the top of the portion of the guard which comes up through the header pipes, approximately ¾”. In this way, the brass will act like a long dowel and support the upper portion of the guard.
Reassembling, feeding the lower portion of the guard through the header and leaving the engine bolt tight enough to allow aligning the upper portion of the guard to the lower portion.
Align the upper portion of the guard onto the brass dowel and attach the guard to the frame in the usual manner. Once the frame contact points are secure, tighten the lower engine bolts, keeping the lower portion of the guard aligned with the upper portion.

My thinking is:
I don’t plan on falling over or knocking the bike over
If the bike does fall over, this should still support it
If some detrimental effect appears, there are plenty of uncut guards available.

The up side:
no need to drop the exhaust to get to the covers
the cut in the guard is low enough as to be undetected unless specifically looking
thr brass won't rust
I can polish the heck out of the aluminum valve covers

The down side:
I can't think of one..... yet

My .02

-Ride On