owners of flatland radiator protector/guard please help with

i just installed my flatland radiator guard. do the 2 black rubber bushings get reused or left out. the reason for asking is because the top nut barely grabs the threaded bolt by about 3 threads only with the bushing on, but if i remove it the flatland guard gets pulled in too close to the frame.
please help. i hope i am explaining this clear enough.

thanks in advance.

I've got mine mounted using the bushing. The nut only has 3-4 threads used, but no problems so far.

I used the bushings on mine. Worked great. Bought it from

Enduro Armor.com

Luke

Older post I know, but...

I had to remove the bushings or my shroud wouldn't reach the mounts (it hit the rad guard too soon). I have emailed the company and asked about this issue. I bought it used but it was brand new and unopened. It's possible my radiator is tweaked, the previous owner laid it down and that's why I was able to buy the bike so cheap and with only 189 miles on it. It looks straight but that doesn't mean it is.

Still hits the guard but at least I can bolt it on now. No way was I bolting it up with the rubber bushings installed still. It was 1/4" away from reaching.

Bushings get reused. I had issues getting the outer bolts lined up - just takes some finagling - the protector is a tight fit and you gotta make sure the mounts extend through those slots in the guard.

I just installed the flatland radiator guard, but what a pain to removed the OEM plastic guard... I was so close to just break the thing and leave the two screws holding it onto the radiator, but finally able to get to it. I do agree that top bolts only thread like half of the bolt with the rubber bushing and a washer. I am thinking about going back and removing the washer...

It look and feel solid, but I wish it had a plate on the bottom to cover rocks coming up from the front wheel... Those have the flatland radiator guard, can you look at the bottom half or 1/3 of the radiator and see any rock damage? I'm thinking either heat tape or even a duct tape between the gap guard and radiator on the bottom. Would the bottom of the radiator get too hot for a duct tape? Any thoughts?

BTW, my heat tape on shroud touches the guard too. I'm thinking about duct taping that spot that touches so the heat tape won't get ripped from rubbing.

Thread resurrection...

Just fitted my rad guard, was a proper pain in the ar$e lining up all the bolts but it worked. That wasn't the case for the shroud as the guard obviously moved the radiator meaning the holes didn't line up. The top tab was about 1" behind the hole, so I zip tied the shroud in place. Even if they did line up the feckin' rad blocks the holes leaving little room for a tool to tighten the bolts.

Any ideas on where I might have gone wrong? This kind of sh!t really pisses me off, I'm considering scrapping it and getting one of the alternatives that are on the market.

beer goggle wrote:

Thread resurrection...

Just fitted my rad guard, was a proper pain in the ar$e lining up all the bolts but it worked. That wasn't the case for the shroud as the guard obviously moved the radiator meaning the holes didn't line up. The top tab was about 1" behind the hole, so I zip tied the shroud in place. Even if they did line up the feckin' rad blocks the holes leaving little room for a tool to tighten the bolts.

Any ideas on where I might have gone wrong? This kind of sh!t really pisses me off, I'm considering scrapping it and getting one of the alternatives that are on the market.

Put mine on yesterday and had some of the same issues but finally did get a decent fit.  Had to use a different kind of bolt on the bottom (shroud side) and it was very difficult to get it tightened.  After that though the shroud went back on OK.  It also helps to go ahead and connect that bottom to the shroud before you tighten the other bolts on the guard and tighten the radiator back to the frame.

Having to use zip ties to hold the shroud on is a actually a good thing as the shroud still bolts to the rad not the gruard, in a tip over the shroud still pushes in on the rad and bends the rad if you bolt it up solid.

I used a zip tie for the bottom shroud bolt and made a small brace ( a piece of 1/4 alum plate about 2 inches long and 1/2 an inch wide with a hole drilled in in the middle if it for the bolt to go through) for the top shroud bolt so side loads from tip overs push on the guard not the rad.

My bolts were pretty close to lineing right up, sounds like some thing is off with yours, did you get the spacers in right?
It is a pita to get a wrench on nut on the top bolt even with things lineing up good.

I installed my Flatlands radiator guard tonight. Went without a hitch. Tomorrow I will be taking the fairing back off (Damn! I don't want to deal with those two 10mm bolts again). I don't like the back of the radiator and fan being exposed, so I'm going to modify the plastic factory shroud and reinstall just the back section.

Hmm, I just looked at the picture above. I used the wrong bolts in the front of the fairing, would have been WAY easier to use the bolts with the hex slot. Oh well, I'll swap them tomorrow.

Ok, I finished my modified factory rear radiator guard with the Flatlands Racing radiator guard.

This is what it looked like after installing the Flatlands guard, I didn't like the exposed radiator at the rear:

Removed the fairing (again):

This is the factory radiator guard:

I cut it to fit around the Flatlands guard:

Bolted plastic back on:

Looks like this:

and now it's protected:

I cut mine also which keeps the heat off the leg also! Berwyn