Finally got around to installing the apes on my Road King. The weather man lied to me so what was supposed to be a couple of crappy days ended up being beautiful sunny days. I can only work on projects after the munchkins go to bed so it took me longer than I had expected.

Some of you may recall that I bought the bars from MadBobber a while back and had to replace the Deutsch connectors. I added a 2.5" piece of wire to ensure that I had enough length and crimped on the Deutsch connectors. Despite not having the proper tool I had no problems crimping the sockets on the wires. I used a common crimping tool and just went slowly and kinked the crimps slightly so that when I gave them the final squeeze they rolled rather than folded over flat. Sorry, no pics of that particular maneuver...It was hard enough to do with two hands so there was no way to manage a camera in the mix!

I nearly kicked the damned thing off the jiffy stand when I was removing the through bolt that holds on the front of the tank. I've had this damned thing off before and it posed no problems but this time I put the wrench onto it and the ratchet on the other side and promptly snapped the goddamn bolt off. I had to remove it to take off the frame covers that the previous owner had installed. The hardware that comes with the Kuryakyn kit if obviously not "Grade 5" which are spec'd in the FSM. Oh well, I have a tame machinist who can make threaded rod and probably get the stub out of the fancy chrome acorn nut. Just glad I didn't dent the tank...someone would have gotten hurt!

The only other little hiccup was with the switch housings. They had a small boss protruding where they seat against the clutch and brake perches. That took a small amount of dremeling and now they seat flush. I found it odd that the hole in the throttle-side switch housing for the idle cable is not threaded. I'm not completely sold on running the bike without an idle cable because the throttle will roll back past fully closed and there is a chance that the cable could slip off of the pulley (I have a Mikuni carb). But since I don't seem to be able to run an idle cable with these housings I may be hooped. Just what I want to do is tear the wiring out and do it over again.

Installing the clutch cable involved post-graduate levels of profanity. The shape of the cover coupled with the position of the hole and the slightly outboard angle that the cable threads in on resulted in one very large, very surly, man. I eventually got it but it tested my patience tremendously. This is one of the times that I was glad the shop is 100 yards from the house! I did luck out by the fact that I didn't have to remove or even loosen the exhaust to get the clutch release cover out. I was sure that I would have to as everyone seems to say that you do but my exhaust was (and still is) well and truly stuck to the engine. I had everything loosened off but it would not budge.

So there is it. Aside from the fact that the black HD grips look like **** with the amount of chrome on the bike, I'm pretty happy...for now. I'm worried that I'll have to mod my seat as I feel too close to the bars. Either that or I'll have to trim the windshield to allow me to push the bars forward more.

Here it is before

And after. Sorry the photos aren't better. I need to stop using the iPod to take pics.

 

Nice. I like the color of your scooter there.

 

Very nice.

 

Thanks. Another reason I'm glad I didn't ding the paint...I recently found out what the paint and colour is (or should I say, Kolor) and they're not giving that stuff away!

 

Outstanding! Looks marvelous!

 

Nice ride!

 

Beautiful bike!

Just a thought, if there is a hole in the housing for an idle cable but it isn't threaded maybe you could run a newer non threaded style cable?

 

That might just work. Any idea what year the cable would have to be compatible with?


I swear the damned thing picked up power with the high bar install.

 

It looks like 96 up to present use the "push in" style cable end.

I know I ordered throttle cables through drag specialties once and was able to do it a la carte style. You just picked your end style, bend, and length.

 

Looks really good. Maybe I missed it but what kinda bars are those?