Below you can see a picture of the new chainplate and backing next to the currently installed OEM.
- Despite larger diameter hardware, hole spacing on new chainplates are much closer
- Backing Plate 1.jpg (30.17 KiB) Viewed 2544 times
Since the spacing is different two new holes would have to be drilled for the new plate. This made we worry that having four straight holes so close to each other would be weakening the fiberglass rail and trading one problem for another. This concern was exacerbated when comparing the new vs the original backing plate.
- New backing plate is dwarfed by the original plate
- Backing Plate 3.jpg (22.33 KiB) Viewed 2544 times
Not only is the current backing plate way longer (almost 6"), but the new backing plate would sit entirely within the span of the old holes. Suddenly strengthening the stainless at the expense of weakening the fiberglass, just didn't seem like a good tradeoff.
I'm now thinking of just replacing the current OEM bolts with new SS ones and checking for corrosion. Curious to see what others have experienced here. Have folks generally experienced more failures of the fiberglass or the chainplate hardware?