I wanted to get a few people's opinions on this. I got a new pair of apes and wanted to run the electrical wiring internally. The bars came pre drilled with all of the necessary holes to make it fairly straight forward. I cut the wires at the top of the fork. I did not take the tank off or unattached the harness or anything like that. I soldered extension pieces to each wire at the top controls and made sure to identify them at the bottom with the original wire color. Got all of the wires pulled through, which was a pain but I found using really thin wire to guide the wires through and WD40 helped tremendously, and now I am ready to solder the wires together at the base of the bars. Is there a problem with this approach? I am not too experienced with Harley's so I wanted to get a few other opinions. Logically this seems like an easier approach v. taking apart the plug and taking the tank off, like every other post I read suggest. Thanks in advance.

 

You made the work much harder on yourself. I would not have messed around with anything near the control end of the wires. That just gives more points of failure.

The tank will slide back, if you just unbolt both ends of the tank. It will slide back far enough to give you room to work.

What I did was map out the wires on a sheet of paper, basically keep track of what color is on engine side of connector versus what color is on the bar side of connector. Then I cut out the connectors, did my internal wiring of the bars, and then soldered back together all under tank. I did not need to wire in extensions but that would be the best place to do that as well.

 

well you are in it now,,,,, fyi there are instructions in the manual about popping wires from the plugs,, super easy to remove and install.. i also think that there are plug and play extensions available as well...all my plug connections were behind an access panel on the underside of back bone,, no need to remove the tank....but like i said you are in it now so do some nice solder work and shrink tubes....your wired bars will look sweet....

 

That will work but disassembling teh connectors is how it is usually done. It is debatable as to which is more work but since you are where you are finish it up. Solder and heat shrink, maybe some wire loom over the exposed wiring.

 

I just read a bunch of doom and gloom threads about this approach. People talking about catastrophic shorts, this that and the other. Is the approach of cutting the wires and then soldering them back up that risky?

 

I've done both on newer and older bikes. Maybe it's just me, but I can cut, splice, and solder much quicker than I can disassemble/reassemble pins in connectors. I would have spliced at the bottom of the bars instead of at the controls, but to each his own.

Taking time, being patient, doing it right with no cold solder joints, and insulating with heat shrink tubing will yield excellent results if you've kept track of wires. Your scoot will look great and you'll take pride in having done it yourself.

 

depends on the bike... some i cut and solder some i just unplug and pull and replug. i never use WD though, this will dry out wires and covering and cause them to crack. baby powder is the magic trick! it is an old chopper trick my dad taught me hahahaha

 

I've done it both ways now and the cut/solder method was much easier. Individual heat shrink, then a big heat shrink tube over the entire group of wires and you'll be in good shape. Plus then you don't have to worry about those cheap *** deutch connectors breaking/bending as you go through the bars.

 

I am currently wiring my stock bars using the opposite method because I didn't need extensions. I pulled the pins out of the connectors and pulled through the bars. On six of the twelve the pins broke, so now need to take a trip to the dealership to buy some pins. Take your time and do a good job of soldering and shrinkwrap and you should be good.

 

When I first went to do it the service manual way, I broke the first damn Douche connection (the wire pulled right out the pin). That's when I mapped it out on paper, cut, soldered, and heat shrunk. I have done it twice now and no issues.

Also, I consider the Douche connectors a glorified crimp connection.