Hey TW--could you post a pic of your homemade rack.
Gdcone, my rack is made of 3/4' plywood, on strap steel braces mounted to the same places on the T-dub as the factory Yamaha rack. FWIW, here it is:
Cyclerack looks like the ultimate solution, but there's a recession going on out there. So I went to Home Despot, grabbed a piece of 3/4" x 48" x 12ga galvanized iron bar stock for under $4.00, and started banging on it with a hammer. First I made a pair of "Z-shaped" brackets which reach under the rear of the seat, to rest on the subframe which holds the muffler. Then I made a pair of "3-bend" brackets which mount on top of the rear turn signals, to tie into the subframe extension which supports the turn signals and rear fender.
Here's a side view of the four completed, mounted brackets (perhaps not very pretty, but very functional).
My link
Here's another view of the completed, mounted brackets. Note that the ends of all four brackets are fastened to the Tdub with the existing hardware, and that the other end of each bracket has a hole for the actual rack to be mounted.
My link
Then I added a scrap piece of good quality 3/4" plywood, on top of the brackets, as a base for my top boxes. I'd estimate that the finished rack will hold 30 or 40 pounds, with little problem.
My link
Finally, I picked up a small but really rugged shotgun shell case from Gander Mountain and two different sized Sterilite containers from Target to try out as top boxes (all fasten to the plywood base in less than a minute with sheet metal screws, using a battery screwdriver) . The largest Sterilite box is shown here, which basically holds my cell phone, camera, light jacket, sunscreen, water bottles, etc. - - in short, everything but my helmet. I
always bungee down the covers. Although none of these boxes are truly watertight, they are at least 95% or 98%. The smaller Sterilite box has already been through a cloudburst, and the cellphone stayed high and dry.
My link
Utimately I added a lockable "train case" or "cosmetics case" to the rack, rather than the sterilite box, so I can lock up gloves, light jacket, goggles, etc. while I hike or imbibe.
