Reviews: Diamond G Racing's aluminum heel guards for the DS650.

Today’s review comes to us from Diamond G Racing.  They’ve developed aluminum heel guards for the DS650.

Difficulty: Easy

Approx. Time: 45 mins.

Tools Needed:  10mm Socket Wrench, 10mm open end wrench, and phillips screwdriver.

I suggest using the open end wrench and screwdriver supplied with the DS’ tool kit.

 Installation:

This kit includes both replacement heel guards and all needed mounting hardware.

The instructions included with the kit are fairly straightforward and easy to follow.  Pictures were not included but in my opinion wouldn’t hurt for the novice ATV do it yourselfer.

You’ll need to take the plastic heel guard off the wire frame first so that you have access the last mounting point on the foot peg nearest the engine.  Ensure to save all the hardware some of it will be needed later.  

Keep in mind you’ll want to hand tighten everything first when installing the new metal guard.  This will ensure you room to move and adjust the guard to fit.  

The instructions mention to attach the guard with the supplied aluminum bracket first.  In my opinion it’s easier to install the two fasteners located on the foot peg (near the motor) first.  

The guard actually slides up inside the peg and is supported by a notch near the outside away from the engine.  After you have the holes aligned slip the supplied hardware in and loosely tighten. 

From here we need to attach the aluminum clamp.  First, place two washers inside the foot peg atop the holes in the guard below.  These washers are needed to help level the mounting surface and prevent the aluminum bar clamp from bending when tightened.  If you are having a difficult time keeping the washers in place, while trying to feed the bolts through, try applying a small dab of grease between the washers themselves and the surface they’re sitting on.  Remember to use the remaining washers on the top of the clamp.  Loosely tighten the clamp down on both sides.

 Thereafter, go ahead and loosely tighten hardware on the rear frame.  At this point I tightened the clamp all the way down as well as the two fasteners on the foot peg.  Next I tightened the frame mount and lastly the fender mount.

Here we can see there are no clearance issues with the foot brake setup.

NOTE:  I strongly suggest using some of the original left over washers for the backside of the fender mount.  This will prevent you from digging the hardware into the plastic (especially if you have a tendency to over tighten stuff like I do).

Repeat the above process to install the other side.

One of the main reasons you may want to upgrade to these metal guards is while dune riding with 22” paddles the tires have a tendency of rubbing on the stock plastic guard (even after adjusting the suspension) and this is the result.

These new metal guards provide a great deal of clearance.  As you can see in this pic my hand fits easily between the guard and the tire leaving a good inch to go!

Final installation looks like this.

PROS:

After taking a good look at the whole setup installed on my DS it couldn’t have been easy to design a part to fit so accurately.  It took little effort to align all the holes and install the fasteners.  To say the least I am VERY impressed with this setup. 

The new guards are phenomenally strong!  Not that Diamond recommends this, but I put all of my weight (280lbs worth) on one of the guards (not the peg) and it didn’t even bend!  Good job guys!

The guards are coated and look durable. 

Finally, the new guards provide a lot of wheel clearance (enough for my hand to easily fit in between).  I would even go to length to say a 23” tire would fit pretty easy underneath.

CONS:

I’m going to go out on a limb and nit pick here, but I wish the hardware would match the rest of the DS’ gold / bronze look.  The chrome does stand out a little.

Contact Information:

Diamond G Racing

714-773-4755

atvfun@msn.com