Yellowed tank bag window

[bmwdean]

After several years, I am on my second BMW tank bag. The first one's zipper gave up the ghost and its window turned yellow from UV exposure.

Does anyone have a good idea how to keep the BMW tank bag window from yellowing?

All I can think of is only use it in sunshine when actually riding and turn it upside down and put it on the seat when stopping in sunlight. The latter is easy to do because it snaps on and off so quickly. But these are less than wondrous solutions.

I also thought of sewing up a fabric tank bag cover with elastic around the edges so I can just put it on and off easily. But I haven't hauled out the sewing machine to make that. I may do that yet if someone doesn't have better solution to stop the UV.

Because of BMW's snap-on-and-off mounting system, I am not interested in getting a different tank bag, so that is not a solution for me.

[Omega Man]

I remembered a thread from recently and in a round about fashion was able to bring it back via the search engine. http://www.bmwmoa.org/forum/showthre...light=tank+bag There have been a lot of posts on this problem so I' going to send it over to Gear and you will probably get some other tips. Gary

[Rudyjo]

If you live anywhere close to a marina, find a sailmaker. Besides sails, some
also do canvas work such as making enclosures around cockpits. Clear plastic
windows are sewn into canvas. They would have some ideas of what to do
about yellowing and can most likely sew a new piece of clear plastic into the bag.

[bmwdean]

Thanks for the repair suggestion.

My hope is to prevent the yellowing so repair is not needed.

BTW, the windows on my R100RT tanks bags, years ago, never yellowed. I guess BMW forgot to use that material for the windows!

[Rudyjo]

I should have mentioned this... when the boats are not being used, the plastic
windows are covered by canvas that are snapped around the windows. If you
could either put some snaps around the plastic, or even velcro, then put a piece
of material over the window of your bag when not being used.

[Jfcaramagno]

When not in use, my tankbag is in the garage. It still yellows.

[Polarbear]

My latest BMW GS bag is crap! The rubber'y clear window is all yellow in two years. Won't but another Chinese made tankbag and thats where BMW has them made, for a premium to us too. I recently bought an RKA tankbag for the KLR and its tankbag window is a definate different material, more rigid like glass, but not and is separable from the tankbag itself. SO, I figure one may perhaps buy their velcro'd map window and apply it to any other tankbag that has a yellow'd map window. Maybe! I have yet to ask, but figure maybe RKA sells the windows separate and if so, a definate improvement over my BMW one. You'd have to apply some velcro to your existing bag, alot of it. The RKA system uses quite a bit of the velcro stuff for their map accessory. Randy