Mudguard & rack fitting

[Piemaster]

Fitting new rack & guards to daughters bike today but finding it a bit of a nuisance as rack needed to be pulled apart slightly to fit around frame and the stays for the guards are quite springy. Only one boss to attach them both to as well, plus the engineer in me says the rack should be as tight up against the frame as possible so the bolt only has a vertical shear force acting on it, rather than having a springy guard wire stay sandwiched in the middle between the frame and rack.
So my solution, a 1/2" piece of thin alloy plate with two 5mm holes in it. One side sandwiched twixt frame & rack, the other end free giving somewhere to bolt stays to. Ok so I still have something clamped between rack & frame but at least its just a thin flat plate, not a thick eye bent into a wire.

Next time a design student rears their head (and I'm sure they will) someone remind me to get them to design an integrated rack/guard combo please.

 

[MartinC]

In this situation I always put the mudguard stays on top of the rack stays so the order is eye, rack, mudguard, washer, bolt.

Only problem you sometimes get is the mudguard stay rattling against the rack but a slight bend of the mg stay or a bit of insulating tape stops this.