Metal Mule Pannier frames for Bullet.

[Stuart]

Will pass this on here because it's been causing us some grief of late & may serve as a warning for anyone thinking of buying a set of these.

My brother has purchased pannier frames direct from Metal Mule but there is a fitment problem.
All holes line up fine except for the front lower, near to the rear foot rest. The fitment drawing supplied shows the lower frame bracket kicking inward (to secure behind the nut) but the frames we received has them welded the other way!
After contacting MM we were told that the frame was correct to their 'mechanical' drawing and that the fitment drawing only looked as it does due to Photoshopping to help assembly.
Hmmm.
Personally, I think whoever made them has made the classic mistake of picking the incorrect part up before welding that bracket on. They have done what is known in the trade as a 180!
The upshot is that we are going to have to sort this ourselves.
I think they've had lots made wrongly & didn't inspect them correctly on delivery.
I'll post the pictures (taken from different sides of the bike - just to confuse things still further) and let you decide.

[mark_in_manchester]

Bad luck.

I'm part-way through making some folding pannier frames out of...wait for it...a pair of leg-irons. Two turned up in the skip at work (!) - and then (since you wait for ages and then three come along all at once) a Nigerian student of large proportions turned up (it's a university workshop) wearing one which he'd sheared off, and asked us to weld it back together for him. Which we did, with suitable reinforcement, hoping to avoid a medical negligence claim...

[Stuart]

Hospital skips are a good source of interesting metalwork lol.
Here's another shot of both the offending brackets together.

[gilburton]

Metal Mule only advertise one for the EFI are the older bullets different??
Also looking at your pics the angle seems wrong as the pannier frame tube to the footrest on other examples on the internet seem to come outwards(and the fitting illustrations) from the suspension units not inwards as in your last pic??
If you swapped them over in the last pic keeping the brackets parallel without any other info I would say that would be more like it?
Do they fit on the other sides of the bike ??
Bit difficult to see when it's just the brackets rather than a whole pic of the frames so apologies if I'm mistaken.

[mark_in_manchester]

Do you have a welder, Stuart? If not, you could perhaps find a bolt about the right size to fit the inside of the tube, drill and tap it into the cut-off bracket (perhaps grinding the head down a bit for clearance), and then glue the protruding thread into the end of the tube with epoxy. We have some amazing glues at work, but even araldite might work ok.

[Stuart]

Metal Mule only advertise one for the EFI are the older bullets different??
Also looking at your pics the angle seems wrong as the pannier frame tube to the footrest on other examples on the internet seem to come outwards(and the fitting illustrations) from the suspension units not inwards as in your last pic??
If you swapped them over in the last pic keeping the brackets parallel without any other info I would say that would be more like it?
Do they fit on the other sides of the bike ??
Bit difficult to see when it's just the brackets rather than a whole pic of the frames so apologies if I'm mistaken.

Their drawing doesn't look right yeah. True, they are for the EFI model Bullet but the bracket in the drawing is still 180 out to actual metalwork.
You can't fit them on other side as all top protrusions point inward correctly.

[Stuart]

Do you have a welder, Stuart? If not, you could perhaps find a bolt about the right size to fit the inside of the tube, drill and tap it into the cut-off bracket (perhaps grinding the head down a bit for clearance), and then glue the protruding thread into the end of the tube with epoxy. We have some amazing glues at work, but even araldite might work ok.

No, I don't have a welder but am pretty good at it when I can do it. Gas that is. Been a while though.
Yes, could fix it that way but getting it sorted soon so outta my hands. Spent too much time on the Ruggerfield & not enough on my own projects!