New Sissy Bar

I needed a new sissy bar for the summer trips and opted for a classy little number (read affordable) that works.  Yes I would love to get a 30"-er but they are pretty spendy and look a bit obnoxious just riding a round town.  Although I will say they do work well to pack up all you stuff.  But as it stands his bad boy will have to work.

How She Stands

 

Goodbye Front Fender

With the new seat on it was just a quick little jaunt to No-Fender Town.

Much Cleaner

Internally Wiring the Bars Pt. 3-Gripped It & Ripped It

With the bars internally wired and all the electrical done up it was time to mount the bars, put the throttle back on, attach the throttle cables and then put the white grips on.

With the bars mounted and the control pods up I reattached the throttle cables

Here it is almost done.  Here is just a note about the grips:  The left side grip was super easy to slide on, no prob at all.  However, the throttle grip was not so easy....

In order to get the new grip on the throttle, I had to roll off the old grip...not so bad, but then I could only get the grip half way on.  So here is the tip:  Go get some rubbing alcohol and rinse the inside of the grip with the rubbing alcohol, the shoot the smallest drip of WD-40 in with it, then slide that bad mofo on the throttle sleeve and let it dry, when it does, that bad boy will not be coming off.

With the new grips on I whipped up an oil/graphite concoction under the throttle sleeve to keep that throttle all lubed up.  Then it was throttle cable adjustment time.  Easy breezy.  Got that snap back going real good.

Here it is all done...

Now onto the speedo and tach....

Internally Wiring the Bars Pt. 2

So when I left it last time, I had finally had some late night success so the next morning it was back to work.  I still had the throttle side to deal with, wiring, master cylinder and throttle.

This time things went so much easier because of what I learned the previous night.  So right off the bat I cut off the wire cover.

This way the wire covering won't bunch up in the 90 degree bend

Tied up the guitar string around the bundle of wires.  This time I knew to divide the wires in to bundles of 3 wires.

And this time, super simple, out comes the wires not as big of a deal this time round

It was at this point that Christa Jayne brought me some delicious breakfast.  I was so surprised and stoked!!!!!  It seriously made my morning!  Two eggs sunny side up on toast, too good!!!

 As soon as I was done with breakfast I wired up the other 3 wire bundle and slide the wrap over and just like that the bars are internally wired!!!!!!!


















Now I mocked up the bars in the bike just to check it out

Now that the bars are mocked up it was time to wire everything back up to make sure it works


















Then was the moment of truth, I turned the key and pressed the started button....she fired right up!!!!!  I checked all the electronics and everything seemed good except the hi/low beam.  After wiring the first time I accidentally mis-wired the hi low beam of the head light but that was a quick and easy rewire.  From there as you can see, thumbs up..all was good in the proverbial hood.

Internally Wiring the Bars Pt.1-Six the Hard Way

Ok so now that the holes are drilled out I thought to myself, "Oh man I got this now!"....How wrong I was.  I mean I knew it was going to be tricky, but little did I know I would end up cursing like a sailor, needing to solder some connectors and learning some very critical information the hard way.

So first I took some thread and tied a nut to the end of the string to put the nut in one one and jiggle it out the other, however, turns out that the nut was too big and I instead decided to use a small screw

Once I dropped the thread with a nut from one hole to the other, then I tied the end of the string to a low E guitar string and pulled the guitar string through the  bars

That proved to be somewhat ok.  I also bought some rubber grommets to put around the holes I drilled that way I would not have to file them down, and they did indeed fit perfect

I pulled both strings through

Then I took the 6 wires from the hand controls, tied an overhand knot around them and taped up the whole thing with electrical tape so it would not come apart while viciously pull them through the bars

Here it is all bundled up

This is where things start to go a bit amiss.  So after trying multiple times to pull the bundle of 6 wires through the bars, I finally get them through (one of the times I realize that the black plastic sleeve bunched up at the 90 degree bend rendering the try useless and having to start all over again, only after cutting off most of the wrap).  However, when I do finally get them to the bottom hole, I realize that the bundle of connectors are too wide to fit through the hole.  I tried vigorously to try and get them out seeing as how I just victoriously pulled them through, but to no avail.  I was pulling out single connectors one at a time.  As you can see here, I got about the 3 of the wires out when tragedy struck...

I broke off one of the Deutsch connectors!  Not a happy moment.  It was about here that I was so pissed off that I stopped taking pictures.  At this point I dropped everything and rode over to Radio Shack where i had to pic up a solder kit (the old one I had was not heating up).  So then I came back and although the night was getting late, I was determined to fix my wrong.  I immediately heated up the solder gun and got to it.  Soon enough, the connector was back on.....oh wait, did I mention that because i could not get all the wires through that I had to pull them all BACK OUT!!!!!!  Well, I did and I was not happy about it.  So anyhow, after I got the connector back on I had a great idea: Instead of pulling out all 6 wires at once, I would break it up and do 3 and 3.  More time consuming but it might work.

And in fact it did!  I had to first put the wires through the grommet so it would be on the back end.  But none the less, I got all the wires through!!!

Here they are all out!

Then I took the extra black sleeve that I cut off and slid it back over the wires and up into the bars.  Slip the wires through a grommet on the bottom, placed grommet around the hole and there it is!  One side of the bars internally wired and some good lessons learned.  Ones that would help make the other side a bit of a breeze...although I had the throttle to deal with.  Either way!  I was stoked, I had some success, and promptly tapped out for the evening.

Drillin' Out the Holes

Well, first I got out my drill and drill bits and figured I would start out by drilling some small holes and then bore them out to 1/2" holes.  Seemed to make more sense then just trying to bore a 1/2" hole straight from the get go.  Decided to do a practice run on my old bars before getting down to business with my new Biltwell's, seemed easy enough.  I will say though that not having a work bench or vice or any sort seems to be making things a bit more complicated in terms of securing the bars for drilling, but I rigged up a nice little set up using a blanket, some old shocks (in boxes) and my good ole feet.  Though drilling on round bars made it a wee bit exciting because one slip O' the drill and I got a hole in my foot.

Here is the practice holes...good enough for rock'n'roll

I then mocked up how I wanted to have the bars sit and yes those are my safety goggles for drilling.  I learned REAL quick that eye protection was very much a necessity when drilling metal.  Also here is what I did not show.  After I mocked them up I used tape on the bars to mark where I was going to need to drill so that when I internally wired the pods back on they would sit properly and in the right space.  Also then where the wires were going to have to exit out the bottom.  This was not a good time and was actually kinda stressful ergo there are no pics because while one is frustrated, taking pics is the last thing you wanna do.

Ok so here is after I taped, marked and drilled the first holes.  Looks good!  However, I noticed that the Biltwell bars are made from some REALLY strong steel and thus drilling holes was ALOT harder than on the other bars that I had....literary scholars would call this foreshadowing....

Wait just a minute, there are no pictures for this but it bears to be mentioned:  I HIT A BIT OF  SNAFU.  So as I am drilling I get to where I am boring out holes from size 5/16" to 3/8" and guess what!?!  I could not bore it out!!!!  It just would not work!!!  The drill seemed inadequate to drill any bigger of a hole.  The steel was just too strong and my drill and bit was not strong enough.  So off to Home Depot I go.  I upgrade my drill to a major hammer drill and buy some Cobalt drill bits to drill through heavy duty metal.  I then get back home and start drilling again with my new Milwaukee heavy duty drill and bits....3/8" hole, no problem but when I them try and bore out to 1/2"....I SNAP THE DRILL BIT!!!!!!  That is how hard this metal is, I snapped a cobalt heavy duty Milwaukee drill bit!  So back to Home Depot I go....a bit annoyed thus no pics.  I buy a couple new drill bits and return home determined to finish boring out these holes before it gets too late in the day and the neighbors begin to hate me.

Here I am drilling with my new drill and bits

Ah, success!!!!!

And to check the holes, here it was mocked up on the bike again

And it was here I called it a night!

Front End Electrical

So first things first, I had to disconnect all the front end electronics going to the control pods on the handlebars.  They are routed eternally and then they go into the headlight bucket and connect to the deutcsh connectors there.  So I opened up the headlight and disconnected the wires there first.  Then I pulled them out of the bucket and disconnected them from the bars.  The clutch side was easy, but removing the throttle side is a bit trickier because in preparation for the new bars I have to remove the throttle as well...

See the throttle housing and the control pod are one and the same so removing the pod means removing the throttle so I opened it up

Removed the cables (was sure not to lose the brass ferrule on each one)

And off comes the throttle sleeve.  As you can see I had to use the headstock of my bass as a make shift holder for the master cylinder/front brake

Taped off what was what so I would remember

Then I removed the bars and we are ready to begin drilling out the holes on the bars to ready them for internally wiring.