OK, I ordered the W0517 bars for the road glide and here is my report about the bars and the install.

First off the Bars arrived via UPS on 5-28, they were ordered on the 23rd so good fast service. I had called the folks at Wild 1’s to ask if I would need to order longer cables and the person I spoke with said he didn’t know.

The quality of the bars is very good.

The install:

The good news is all the stock cables are long enough you will have to cut some tie wraps to provide some slack and you will need to reroute the clutch and break cable but this is not difficult in fact next to the opening of the Speedo housing and removal of the windshield this is one of the easiest things to do

You will have to remove the faring to disconnect the wire harness for the controls on both sides as well as disconnect the electronic throttle wires.


You do not need to replace any of the parts for the throttle control just use caution in disconnecting everything and you will be golden.


You will find that inside the bars there is a little green connector that must be disconnected to allow for the electronic throttle to be removed from the bar you will pull the top half of the wires from the top end of the bars and the bottom half will be removed from the bottom.

The wiring for the controls (radio cruise etc) are not so easy. On the stock bars there is a long trench on the underside of the bars that allows the wires to be routed externally, this trough does not exist on the Wild 1’s bars and you will have to route all of those internally. To do this you will have to remove all the wires from the plastic plug on the end, there are a few ways to do this.


Me I just cut all the wires. After doing that I stripped the existing plastic cover off and rewrapped the wires tightly with electrical tape to make a stiff line of wires that was easier to feed through the bars.

On the break side this is not to hard but on the throttle side you have the additional wires inside from the throttle so you will need to feed them at the same time as the throttle so that the little green connector on the throttle wires are passing the hole on the underside of the bars that you will feed the control wiring through at the same time or you will find your control wires getting caught on the green connector inside the bars and they wont feed.

Once the wires are fed through (you will need to feed them as far as possible to allow you to tuck the last bit near the controls into the bar so that the controls will butt up against the mounting bracket for the clutch/break.) now that they are through you will have to splice all the wires back together again. Helpful hint the Grey connector attaches to the clutch side controls and the black connector attaches to the break/throttle side controls.

After all is spliced wrap everything with electrical tape. And you are ready to mount the bars.

The angle of the grips on these bars is rather tight and you will have to mount them in a manner most comfortable to you. I am still trying to figure out where that is. On the ride in the angle was not good and it Felt somewhat like I was trying to touch my pinky to the outside edge of my forearm. I have lowered the bars and I think this will help but I won’t know until my trip home.

Hardest part of all this is splicing all the wires and re-mounting the faring.

The seating angle has improved quite a bit and I can now sit upright and easily look over the stock shield where the stock bars had me leaning too far forward.

 

Just put my 517's on 3 weeks ago and it's the BEST thing I have done to my bike!!!

The big pain for me was also the 2 wiring harnesses under the front fairing. I removed mine from the actual sockets. Easy once you learn the trick. I am very glad I made note as to color of wireandlocation since 2 of my wires were DIFFERENTcolorsfrom what the service manual said.That would have had me all freaked out!! I then just wrapped them together (one on each side) and wrapped with electrical tape on the ends and ran them down from the grip down through the center hole.

Trick to putting the fairing back on...... Remove the headlight cover and headlight unit. Put on the bike (you can now see the 2 hooks you need to hit!) then put your headlight back on and lense cover. Takes about 2 minutes.

Glad to hear all worked for you too.

 

This is a very timely post for me. My 517's are out at the powdercoaters right now and I'll be taking on the install next weekend. I have that little green electrical tool to help remove the pions from the plugs without having to cut the wires, so it should be a neat install.

I see what you mean about the angle of the grips. My last two Glides had the HD pullback bars which didn't angle your wrists too much. Of course, HD didn't see fit to make them available to us for the '08 bikes yet, so I had to pony-up for the Wild1's. I hope they are worth the $180.

Anyhow, I appreciate the report.

 

I lowered the bars the other da before going home and it did the trick I can now sit upright and in comfort. It is taking some getting used to as far as the change in how it handles.

But no I know that a back rest will be awsome, as I can lean back a bit now, no more hunch back/

 

TXPOPEYE,

Thanks for the insightful review. My bars should be here sometime this week.
Being that I don't have the shop manual (yet) and the bike is still under warranty, I'm opting for the dealer to do the install.
FWIW, the guy I talked to at Wild 1 said that the 517s shouldn't require any cable changes or extensions. (I guess your experiences confirms this...)

Like omgtkk said, I hope the Wild 1s are worth the cash.

Thanks again for the review,

Steve

 

Just use a safety pin. Bend it open so you can stick the end down in your plug. Works like a charm!

 

I just installed Cyclesmith 13" apes on my EGC two week ago.Had to put all new cables and brake lines also.I went with +6 over stock on everything ecept the wireing.Had enough slack to run thru the bars and still hook up.Took the plugs apart without cutting wires and then reinstalled the plugs.

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