As I'm prone to do I figured I'd offer a quick step by step for the newbie wrench. Didn't grab great pics this time around but hopefully what I have will suffice.

All my research, various threads and videos seem to be split up and not many had late model bikes so hopefully this helps anyone wanting to try their hand at a bar swap instead of having a shop do it and charging hundreds (saw a thread here a couple of weeks ago, guy was quoted $800+ but not sure if it was a new bike)

This should cap off my winter mods (yeah right), having now done cams, LED inserts, Fork spings, and a few others. Pardon the mess of the garage, I'd like to say that I'm working on cleaning it up but...

The bars... I really liked both the look and height of the stock mini apes, but even with rotating them towards me a bit, the reach was a bit much.





I decided on Wild 1, 8 inch pull back drag bars. I went back and forth between chrome and black and decided on black in the end. Great pricing from Phat Performance as always. I took off the old bars and mocked up just to make sure that I would be happy. Despite only being 5'7 I probably could have gone with the 10" version which only increased rise by 1 inch along with another 1 inch of pull back. But all the pics of them frankly looked a little weird on the bike. Ego I know



Some of the advice I received from here and HTT, the manual says to remove the gas tank, but some had told me that I may not need to. I took a shot and pulled the rubber grommets from the side. A little tight but in the end I left the tank fully installed.




Another bonus with new Dyna's (and I assume some other lines), you DO NOT HAVE TO DE-PIN the connectors. Yeeha huge time savings there! I was able to easily pull and push the wires out of the bars and remove the controls. So far I was probably into the project by less than an hour including the tool set-up, mock-up, and removal of old controls.

If you want to keep your stock left grip, it's easy to break the glue. simply loosen the left hand controls to slide them out of the way. Insert a small flat screwdriver under the grip and slide it around and listen for the glue to break. A couple of easy twists of the hand and it came right off. I was careful to slide everything off but did not loosen the clutch cable at all.

For the throttle side, slide the boots off the throttle cables pop the jam nuts and loosen both cables until slack. I loosened the bolts off for the master cylinder but kept it attached overall. Heeded the advice of others and popped a small piece of cardboard between the brake lever to wedge it open a bit so that I wouldn't impact the brake light switch upon re-install. Also when pulling the throttle cables out remember to quickly remove the brass ferrules and put them somewhere safe before they fall and get lost.

ADDED LATER TO INCLUDE A BETTER EXPLANATION AS TO WHY AND WHERE TO PLACE CARDBOARD SHIM

Um, it actually releases to actuate the light,, the lever keeps it depressed while riding,, when the lever is pulled back,, a spring in the switch pushes it forward to complete the circuit.
Quote:
Apparently this button can break fairly easily and so it's suggested to put a piece of folded cardboard between it and the lever when removing them.
The cardboard or shim goes between the lever and housing to hold the lever in a pulled back position,, not between the lever arm and switch..

https://www.hdforums.com/forum/dyna-g...ch-ughhhh.html

 

So got everything removed to bare bars, popped them off and put the new ones on to wire... um yeah silly, forgot to put my leads in with bars off. In the end I probably put the bars on and took them off again 10 times. Ha the joys of a first time project!

Many people recommend fishing line and such. I read or heard of one guy using small chain or Mardi Gras beads, great idea and I happened to have some in the house. took the bars off and in less than five minutes had the beads through and ready to wire, how cool!







I started with the left side, taped the beads to the wire and started to push and pull, not too bad, less than 10 minutes being uber careful and wire was through. This was going to be easy or so I thought.



I taped the throttle side to the appropriate beads, started to push and pull and quickly got stuck. What made it worse was that I couldn't pull the wire out either. Back and forth for probably a half hour I was so scared about breaking something. Not sure where or why it got wedged but everyone always said that patience was the key to a good bar install so I kept breathing deep until the beads broke. Son of a B... tried to pull the wires back out and completely stuck inside. Took the bolt out of the riser to see if I could slide anything up through to figure out where the heck the wires were stuck, no luck. Then I tried grabbing the wires for all I was worth, couldn't get them out. Then I started just pulling hard, stopping, pulling hard again. Finally I got them out, but it took a while.

When taking the tape off the remainder of the beads I realized I had pulled one of the wires out of the connector. Another deep breath and a few curse words, but I had watched enough videos that if I had to re-attach I thought I could. Quick couple of photos of the connector so that if more wires came out I would know how to put them back in.

 

I hate to say it but I wasted probably another half hour or more using more beads, breaking said beads, looking for other items I might be able to use given that the bead/wire combo was simply to stiff and having a hard time with the bend. Finally I realized that I could use the beads as a leader, then attached some kitchen twine to the beads followed by taping the twine to the wire and wrapping the heck out of everything. Put a gap of maybe 5 inches. Voila! easy as pie but wasted over an hour yeesh!




Once this was done I re-installed the two wires that had pulled out, connected both left and right side wiring, and turned on the ignition to make sure that all my lights, horn, etc. worked. I didn't start the engine yet but figured if everything else worked I'd at least be going in the right direction.

Not wanting to forget anything I figured that I was finally done removing the bars for the umpteenth time so torqued the riser bolts to manual spec. Put the left side back together. Slapped some glue into the new grip and pushed fast to make sure it was on all the way. I opted for some Arlen Ness grips, rubber and chrome billet. I found out after this that they are a couple of millimeters shorter than stock, so there is a bit of a gap between the bar stops and controls/grips, I tried to make it look as even as possible.



Then re-installed the throttle side. Popped the brass ferules back on the cables, got them in the grooves and lubed the cables with some harley lube I had. Switch housings back on and then watched a quick video (or two), on how to properly adjust the throttle cables. That took me a while, I also got the levers adjusted to the right position along with mirrors and turn signals. I kept going back and forth as to how much to adjust the cables so finally I decided to just open the garage, crank up the engine and adjust the throttle with it running so I could both see and hear how changes were made. That helped a lot.

Then went from side to side, torquing the various clamp bolts in equal installments making sure that I didn't forget anything. I think I got it all right, and adjusted. I did have to adjust my clutch cable a tiny bit. I assume it was due to the bars being slightly lower. Once I was sure that all my electrical was working, engine starting, etc. I tucked the wires back into the frame and put the grommets back in.

So here are the pics of the completed swap. Total time should have easily been less than 3 hours for a first timer, but screwing around with the wiring on the right side, taking the bars off over and over again, throttle cable adjustment and worrying about side to side play of the throttle cost a ton of time. In the end spent just under 5 hours including set up, cleaning, testing throttle with engine running, and stuff.

Huge post, sorry about that, but who knows, maybe someone will get something from it, hopefully the fairing I bought from another member will be here tomorrow and I'll be ready to ride once the snow is gone!

 

Good job Robby, that will help someone down the line I guarantee it. Good choice on the black bars the bike looks good. I wish my bike had those tiny connectors, there's barely enough room in the backbone of my bike for all my connectors

 

Thanks! I hope it does. I couldn't believe it when I got the first side done how fast and easy it was. Real let down on the throttle side. Doing a weighted lead tied to a string tied to the wire is definitely the ticket for those thicker ones.

Yeah those mini connectors are the cats meow!

 

Excellent choice on the bars, excellent choice!

And I've said it before, seat is perfect!

 

Good write up Rob! I like those bars too, kinda want a bit taller bars myself but waiting to see how I feel after switching to mids.

 

Another nice write-up thanks robby, if i decide to pull the trigger on the R6C bars i will use this for reference. do you happen to have a link to the throttle adjustment videos? i just installed new turn signal extension caps and putting the cables back on was a bitch!! i must have been either skipping a step or i am just really dense....
thanks again
stres

 

Try using a guitar string to pull them through, I've used them for years.

 

That would be a good one. Assume you need to weight it at the end to use as a guide wire?