Help me fit my Tubus Tara lowrider

[Steve]

I've fitted the lower brackets of the carrier to the drop outs using the spacers - all that's fine. But now the two horizontal arms are a long way off the brazed on bosses - 20mm one side & 10mm the other. So if I want to avoid "stressing" the whole thing & risk failure somewhere I have two choices: use absurdly long bolts with spacers, or bend the horizontal arms to fit. Suggestions please!

[CREPELLO]

Drill the securing mount holes out a bit larger? If you look closely at the lower RH mount, the assembly appears to be tilting backwards a bit, which would help account for the uneven appearance.

I have found from experience, that neither Tubus racks (I have a Tara with a flaw in it's construction, tho it doesn't bother me), nor top bespoke frames are always assembled with such accuracy that such problems aren't encountered. In which case I have decisevely bent the rack ONCE, which usually sorts things (well, I had to reshape a crash damaged Tubus - very hard work, but it's still working for me on my daily). Obviously twisting the rack to and fro will weaken it, but I don't think once will.

[rualexander]

Mount the horizontal arms on the inside of the hoop rather than the outside?

[clandyfield]

Do you have the Tubus instructions?
I ask this as it appears from your photo that you have got the rear fixing wrongly positioned. From the Tubus online mounting instruction, the front rack hole fits onto the rear fork mount (and is a single fixing point; you appear to have it fixed in two places).
Having fitted similar Tubus to my Panorama, I did find that a slight bending was required to get horizontal rods to fit (with supplied spacers). It then carried 2x12lb panniers with absolutely no problems over a 2 week tour in France. Very solid racks.

Andy
PS The Instructions are available at http://www.tubus.com/product.php?xn=16

[Brucey]

if you had mounted the fork blade mountings first, then the mountings at the dropouts, I doubt if you would have noticed that the alignment wasn't perfect; I bet your dropout eyes are not perfectly aligned either.

The bottom line is that the mounting tabs on the carrier are designed to be bent slightly during assembly. If it really troubles you, maybe some curved washers from an old set of 'V' blocks on the dropout mountings would set your mind at rest?

cheers

[Steve]

Thanks all. I realize the braze-ons at the dropout are not very well aligned (that's custom built for you) & thanks for pointing out that I've got the wrong bit of the bottom plate attached. Perhaps when I put them on properly it'll look a bit better. Will have another tinker & maybe bend those horizontal arms a bit. I've had the thing 18 months & never tried fitting it until now, less than one week before I finally need it.

Just checked the Tubus website where the dimensions drawing says 131mm between the horizontal arms. Will have to measure my fork braze-ons to see if they correspond.

[clandyfield]

JOOI, where are your mudguard stays? When the rack is mounted with the front hole on the rear dropout fixing the mudguard stay normally then attaches to the rear fixing of the rack IYSWIM. If you do fix the mudguard there, then the stays will then be too long. Don't cut them unless you intend to keep the rack as a permanent fixture!

Anyhoo, I'm sure that when you correct the mounting it'll all fall in place - you might have to "flex" the horizontal arms in slightly (even with the spacers) to get them fitted, but nothing that would affect the integrity of the rack.

Andy