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Fitting a Givi V56 Maxia 4 Top Box to an ST with Panniers

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VinceS:
When these fabulous ST's came out there was an option to buy a non-fangio top box, which was mounted on weak arm brackets and waggled the tail of the bike around a fair bit if you got excited with it. And the arms just broke. Hopefully you have an old pair lying around as one of the new brackets needed is very conveniently got by chopping one of those non-anything ones up!

Yes we can use Ventura racks and they are sorta-OK. As they slowly bend over the tail light due to overloading (ahem, it happens) one wishes for a more fit-for-purpose rear luggage system. The Venturer bags will always be fine for solo (because the bag sits where the pillion isn't and any load is OK), but quickly become useless pillioning as they head south. At least if you bend them straight and add occy straps they make it home OK (from Tassie). Which gets you looking around for the best possible solutions to this whole top-box issue.

That turns out to be the Givi V56. It fits two helmets EASILY! Not a lot else but, unless inside the helmets. The arms are REALLY SOLID, so don't waggle the tail if solo. AND, you can buy an official Givi back-rest assembly as there are no "don't lean on this top box" stickers. Kellie says the back rest regraded the bike from good to really excellent and loves her new top box. Yep, she gets ALL the extra capacity to herself! After about 2,000km of all sorts of (reasonable) abuse, including overloading, this looks like a pretty robust system to me and well worth fitting to an ST, or anything you can get brackets for, really.

But matching in with panniers? Not on Givi's radar, and zero chance of using the factory brackets to work with Ducati panniers. Fortunately, it is not that hard to make them compatible. The longest Givi bracket pair can be bent to be suitable. The shorter pair needs to be a smidge longer so you need to make another set, for which a donor set of originals is very handy, or just do it with flat bar. The bracket pics below show two original Givi brackets next to what I did to them. Obviously smoothed them up and painted them before final install, but this illustrates the actual job you have to do. Edit: Oops, what was I thinking. The spacer shown next to the short arm actually goes with the long arm - basically to make up for the joggle being taken out. Not sure what happened to the one on the short arm but it is not needed, maybe the brackets are reversed and attach to the other side of the arm now - dunno, but it was easy and obvious, whatever exactly it was...

If that kind of basic fabrication job doesn't put you off, you need to buy the kit, direct from the Italians is best. See www.motorama.it/en. The lot with back rest cost me 400 euro (291 topbox, 109 postage), so about $600, in June 2016. At least double that to buy in Oz. Took about 6 weeks to deliver, first 2 was waiting for all the bits to come in from the factory (note mid-end August is holidays). Whenever I asked for an update they were always helpful and cheery, and sometimes I actually found out what I wanted! But when it finally turned up, it was well packed and in good order, as they do actually know what they are doing.

Here is current info:
V56NN box e205 https://www.motorama.it/en/givi-top-case-v56-maxia-4-P18401.htm
675f arms e38 https://www.motorama.it/en/givi-675f-staffe-monorak-st2-st4-900-97-01-st3-04-08-P2933.htm
M3 plate e33 https://www.motorama.it/en/givi-plate-P4378.htm
E111 backrest e29 https://www.motorama.it/en/givi-specific-backrest-P3148.htm
T468B inner bag e27 (bit of a wank really, don't need this) https://www.motorama.it/en/givi-inner-bag-P13214.htm

That lot adds up to e332; allow e120 post and you are looking at e452 or about $680 which is still a bargain for what it is, and worth a bit of stuffing around for. Send them an email to ask about the situation with factory restock timing if you put an order in for the lot. Plenty of time before summer, do it now! Enjoy.

Edit: I just replaced a rear tyre and noticed the left bracket to Givi arm was loose. I ALWAYS use nyloc nuts for this sort of application so there is no big fail, make sure you do too.

By way of further info, when you are confronting the nitty gritty of bending brackets, the process goes like this:

The longer Givi brackets go in the rear position, roughly through the middle of the factory panniers as supplied. So you MUST flatten them out enough to miss, which you do just enough to achieve that then make up spacers to deal with how much of the joggle you took out.

Straightening the back arms makes them longer, which is why, to keep the top box level, you must make up longer front ones. There isn't an option to re-drill the back ones to original length and use the Givi front ones as the front pannier bracket interferes with them also.

Because I didn't know where this was going, I messed around getting one side correct then duplicating it on the other. It is a real nuisance as the REAL thing you are trying to do is ensure the top box plate is level and leaves enough clearance to the grab handle that it can be held. Mine is OK, but I probably didn't really get quite enough. The only fix would be to make the front arms a little longer so the whole assembly moves back a little, like a parallelogram. Anyway, I recommend you do both rear arms and make those spacers up (temporarily using washers while you get the thickness right). Then you can temporarily mount the whole thing and it is much easier to see exactly what you want for that front bracket.

Once you are happy the thing is sitting where you want it you need to check the pannier brackets fit over it OK. Basically by tightening your modified brackets to the Givi arms while they are is assembled to the bike. Then remove them and hold the Givi + bracket assembly against the pannier bracket and see how you went. You will be OK as you already did this a few times while figuring out exactly what the bracket mods need to be!

Worst happens is you ditch a bracket/s and try again - there is nothing here you can't fix up with what's in the bracket aisle at Bunnings!

I hope this extra explanation gives you the confidence to bite the bullet on this very worthwhile addition to an ST. Plus I figure it is a pretty portable answer as the ST may get updated one day, despite that nothing in the fleet comes close, still, so it can be moved to another bike for the cost of making a couple of new hangers / replacing the arm kit and the Ventura stuff goes with the old bike. But I still like this bike way to much to trade / sell it, and trying hard to avoid the other more annoying way one moves to a new bike! Dunno about the rest of you, but I took a new 1200S multi for a test ride and didn't get 1km before turning round and handing the keys back in - those things look so good on paper but are not a patch on the pin-sharp handling and motor characteristics of a (well-tuned) ST4S.

Some more pics added in below, to assist remove any confusion in the words!


Edit 2: Now I am back looking at this nearly a year later, two more points. 1) Find a really sticky rubber glue to keep the case support rubbers in. They are always falling out and mine are now pinned and silasticed in, so at least they get a chance to get worn away. 2) You are GOING to be overloading the bike if you use panniers, Givi and pillion on it. You CANNOT do this mod without replacing the 9kg/mm rear spring with at least an 11kg/mm unit. Don't add your name to the list of people that have found this out the hard (expensive) way. Check your bottom bump stop rubber regularly as the odds are you won't have got the sag right either. This is not 'she'll be right' unimportant stuff, you NEED to do it!!!

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