Sorry to hear that the bars were not what you had hoped. It was smart to try them out before doing all of the wiring.

It might be worth checking into the KW 2+2 narrow sweepers. They definitely moved the grip up 2" and back 2". I could feel the difference. No question. Lots of picture threads in the forum. And the bars are a reasonable $90.

Ride Safe.

 

 

I finished installing the bars today. I have one issue outstanding. The heated grips are stuck on. I’ve made a separate post about that. It was raining hard today so no chance to do a test ride. I ended up calling Wild1 and talked to them about the fact that I had test fit the bars and couldn’t really notice a big difference. He told me that there is a significant difference but you really can’t tell for sure until you get the grips on and go for a ride. Since I already had gone so far, I went ahead and finished. It’s prime riding season after all and I didn’t want to spend any more time. Now that the job is done, there is a noticeable difference. To me, it’s not a 3 inch difference though. I’ll know more when I ride. Overall, this is an easy thing to do mechanically speaking. It just takes time and patients. I did use the 12 inch Namz wiring extensions for the switch wires. I cut a few wire ties and the clutch and brake lines were long enough. The TGS (throttle grip sensor) was difficult to get seated in the handlebars. I called them about this and they said they do it on purpose. Something about some grips being longer. The problem is, the cut out’s for the tabs on the TGS are a bit too small. So I had to take a razor blade and shave just a bit off the TGS tabs. Even then I had to push really hard to get it to seat. They told me to just get it partway in and that would be fine. Once again they said that if the grips were a bit longer, this would help make sure the grip would contact the gear part of the TGS before they hit the switches. Since I was using HD heated grips I made sure to seat the TGS all the way in. While I’m talking about the TGS, I had another possibly related issue. When I pushed the right grip on for the first time to make sure everything felt good, I was very, very tight. Basically it wouldn’t snap back to the idle position. I believe this was related to how tight the bar cutouts were for the TGS. I realized that the grip seemed to be rubbing at the outside near the TGS. When I looked, I could see that the TGS tabs were bulging out just a bit. Once again, it looked like it was because the cutouts in the bar was too small and when I pushed the TGS in, the tabs bulged a bit from so much pressure on their sides. I took some fine grit sandpaper and sanded the plastic tabs down until the grip slid on easily and snapped back to the idle position. It took a fair bit of sanding. I also used just a small spray of dry PTFE inside the grip. That helped also. As far as running the wiring inside the bars, I didn’t have any problems. I was thinking it would be the hardest part and it was relatively easy. For a wire chaser I found a piece of some kind of polyethylene tubing in my workshop. It was a pretty small diameter tubing however it was very stiff. So I was able to push that through the bars, electrical tape the wires to that, and pull it back out. You don’t have to “de-pin” the TGS wire connecter like is shown in some of the videos. There is a smaller connector inside the right bar. So you pull the TGS out far enough to disconnect it and then pull the lower wiring out the bottom. Then feed the TGS wire into the bottom of the new bars and out the top where you can reconnect the TGS pigtail.

Overall, the quality of Wild1’s bars is exceptional. The chrome is flawless. The openings are smoothed out and totally deburred. As far as the pullback and comfort, I’ll report on that as soon as possible. They are longer, but they are also getting wider as they go back which takes away from how close they get to you.

If anyone has any questions of comments, please speak up.

Thanks again,

Dave.

 

can you see out the mirrors ok

 

Very interested in feedback and pictures after a test ride.

 

Yes it's the same as before since my bike is an FLHTP. The mirrors are on the bars, not on the inner fairing.

 

Will do. Lots of rain today. May have a chance tomorrow afternoon if the rain stops as predicted. Otherwise I hope to get a nice ride in Sunday or Monday.

 

I believe we're in the same weather system. Rumor has it rain moves out early Sunday and summer arrives on Tuesday. One more question. It's my understanding you have to cut 3/8" off the left side of the bars or there will be a small gap between the front edge of the master cylinder bracket and where the bars transition to 1 1/4". Did you cut off that 3/8" and if you did what tool did you use to do the cutting?

Thanks for any info you can make available.

 

You are supposed to cut of a bit of the end of the bar to compensate for the potentiometer part of the heated grip. I didn't do that. And yes there is a small gap. I'll take a pic when I can. Now that I have to do this again, I may do the cut. The problem is, I'm not sure the best way to do it. I guess either a grinder or sawzall.

 

Best thing to use is a tubing cutter.