Just installed my new 13" Prime Apes from LA Choppers and these bars are kick ***. Chucky was great to deal with and the customer service was top notch.

This is by far the best mod you can do to your ride for the most impact. Looks great, feels great and turns heads.

I did have a bit of a problem getting wiring through bars, but I think the more difficult task was getting the molex connectors out of the pin sockets. I had the hardest time getting them to pop out smoothly. Any event, like otheres have said, now that I have done it once I am very comfortable in doing it again if I should ever have too.

So Ill post some of my procedure for those looking to do the same and hope I can add something to make it easier for the next guy.
First, Disconnect the negative cable from the battery.
Cover the tank and front fender with a heavy blanket.
Remove the top three bolts that hold the windshield on. Remove windshield.

Remove two bolts on inner fairing that hold outer fairing in place.
Remove two bolts that hold your lower fairing tin to outer fairing. You can reach these with a screw driver by going through front fork area below inner fairing.


Outer fairing should come off. Disconnect the headlight plug and place outer fairing to the side and out of the way.


Next, we are going to remove the nacelle, which is the black switch housing / handle bar clamp cover. one easy to find bolt on each side.


With key in ignition, turn ignition switch all the way to left, then turnt he key a little bit farther. it should travel maybe 1/4 inch more. While holding in place reach under the ignition switch and feel for a little tab. You should be able to push this in or up.


Then ignition switch should slide right out with a spring. Next loosen the nut the ignition switch covered, then metal washer and plastic spacer. The ignition plate and nacelle should slide right off. Discounect wire to nacelle and put to side for later install.


Be sure to group and mark all the bolts in order of how you removed them for an easier install when your done.

Next you want to remove the handle bar switch plugs from their sockets and take a picture of each and label how the connectors go back together and write down the color sequence. This is obviously very important.



If you forget, hopefully these pics will help you out some.




Next loosen the clutch cable at the middle adjuster area. This should give you enough slack to slide the clutch handle out in next step.

Remove switch housing covers, remove wire ties, remove c clip and barrel holding clutch in clutch perch. I removed the master cylinder from handle bar and place in a bucket just to keep any brake fluid from leaking out on paint.


Next remove handlebar clamp then bars.
You are now ready to remove the tiny metal molex connectors from their pin sockets. You can do this by inserting a paperclip in the hole above the wire and pulling the wire out from behind the plug. The whole white/tan socket should slide in and out. Make sure it is slightly pulled forward to remove the metal connector.



I wish I had better pictures of this, but this was the most frustrating part for me. I had one heck of a time getting the wires to slide out. Hopefully you have better luck with yours. Once all pins were removed, it was time to start cutting and soldering.

I didnt get the extended wiring kit, though color coded and with pin connectors on end, you still have to stagger cut the wires. Maybe next time around Ill give them a shot. I decided to get a roll of 18 gauge wire and just cut 12" pieces for each handlebar wire. I started one wire at a time. Cut, solder, shrink tube. You'll have to solder twice for each wire when adding a piece in.

Dont forget to stagger your splices so you don't end up with a thick bundle in one spot.

I did not use an extended tbw wire. I simply cut and soldered length in and it seems to work fine. My loca dealership wanted $100 for an extended wire so you can save some money just extgending it yourself, and theres no bulky green connector to deal with working through the bars.


When this was finished, I then heat shrinked each group of wires together. Left bar wires all shrnk wrapped together. Right side switch housing wires all heat shrinked together. and tbw wires all heat shrinked together. I think I used 4' long 1/2" heat shrink tube for switch housing wires and 1/4 or 1/8 for tbw wires.

I left about 4-6 inches extra heat shrink on at end of wires as directions from paul yaffee monkey bagger bars suggests. I have those instructions if anyone should need a copy just pm me and Ill email it to you.
Fold the end heat skrink over two or three times, pierce the center of the flap, which should be maybe an inch in length, and run your lead wire through the hole. I used the extra 18 ga wire I had left over and just double it up for extra strength. Once the lead wire is through the hole in flap, I wrapped around the grouped wires sever times in a shoe tie pattern then electrical taped it down. Tape it good and tight as your going to be pulling rather hard and you dont want the lead wire to break free from the bundled wires.

I used fishing string with a nut on the end and ran that through the bars first. Just hold up bars and shake and let gravity takes its course, moving bars accordingly for each bend. I then tied lead wire to fishing string and pulled that through. Now comes the fun part.

I used bearing grease. some say wd40 or talcom powder. Id stick with bearing grease if I had to do it over. Its messy, but it works. Grease up the tbw wire first, and snake through the bars. Use more of a push than pull. When you get to the top bend, and it seems pushing isnt getting it by, pull and push at same time. Have a friend help at this point. With tbw should be no problem and you should have pulled through in minutes.
Next is the harder part. Rt switch housing wires. Grease it up good and plenty, then start pushing into bars. Its gonna be tough at first, but trust me, it will go if you have enough grease on it. try to guage how far in the wires are going, as once it nears that first bend, your gonna think we are all liars and its just impossible. I did. I walked away, then my wife came over and lent a hand, and that with a prayer and it using the push pull got it past the first bend and the rest just gets easier. Just remember to keep adding grease to wire bundle as it goes into the bars.

Now that the hardest part is over, start same for left side. Only one bundled wire group so this should not be too difficult. Maybe 15 - 30 minutes if that for both sides.

Now that you accomplished that major hurdle, you can start cleaning up all the messy grease and tape. Clean it all off, remove tape, lead wire and be careful cutting back heat shrink a few inches below the wire pins.
Now you can start inserting molex conectors back into their respective plugs and make sure you check and double check that wires go back in right order.

Once I got this far, I mounted new bars, installed ignition switch, connected negative cable to battery and tested lights horn, etc just to be on safe side. Once I knew all was good, I moved over to break lines.


I connected the brake lines to the connecting mount that goes under the fork stem. I loosened old one and had ready to install new one.
My brake reservoir was in a bucket and lower than the fairing, so any fluid in the line from that point was back in the line towards the reservoir. I made sure extra rags were on fender and around the front brake caliper, then removed one line at a time and replaced with the new one. Lower brake lines are now installed, and its time to replace the line leading to master cylinder. Wrapping it in towel, it was easier to grip and break the banjo bolt free. I then routed the new line up through fairing and connected to master cylinder in bucket. A friend lent me a mity vac to bleed the brakes and that took less than five minutes to complete.

Now the clutch cable. Il be darned, I dont want to take the exahust off to remove the trans cover. I decided to remove left saddlebag and lean bike over on left side crash bar. This worked well and I was able to get to all the trans side cover allen heads. The two bottom had to be done with an allen head wrench and took a little longer but sure beat removing the exhaust. I think I lost 4-5 drops of oil at the most.

I routed new clutch cable through fairing, pulled side tranny cover off, unscrewed old cable, inserted new cable, and made connection. I did not have to remove the bearings or ramp cover. gasket looked good, so just installed tranny side cover, tightened down clutch cable, installed other end at clutch perch, and adjusted clutch at center cable adjuster area.
Then it was just a matter of installing the outer fairing in reverse order of removing it.


I think I covered just about everything. Wish I had more pics, but it got messy and my phone kept freezing up. If you have any specific questions or comments let me know and Ill try my best to help out. Thanks to chucky from LA Choppers for all the great customer support and service and thanks to this great forum for helping me complete this project and others myself.
HD Forums is like GEICO...They can save you a whole buncha money by doing it yourself!

 

Nice bar and write-up, thanks for sharing

 

Great job. Looks very cool. How did you decide on bar height?

 

They only come in 13" as far as I know. My hands are just above the fairing and below the shoulders, which isn't too bad in my book. One thing to make note of is these bars are very wide. if they were equal width with the fairing, they would be perfect. With that said, I still think they are perfect and Ill be fully adjusted to the width in a days riding.

 

Thanks for the write up, bar look great!

 

Great job. Looks very cool. How did you decide on bar height?

 

They offer one height. From what others posted in pics I measure about how high hands would be and decided to go with it.

 

Thinking about putting the same bars on mine. The wiring has me a bit leary....

 

It was a bit of a PITA and once wires were through the bars it was pretty messy with the grease and all. With that said, once your done, you'll be eating bugs for at least a month because you cant stop smiling.

Bars look and feel great! and you will have the satisfaction of doing it yourself and know your bike all that much more.

If you have any questions or problems PM me and Ill shoot you my number and help you out as best i can. Easily one of the best mods you can do to your glide.

 

Great write up. Getting ready to tackle this myself