Curvy handlebar conversion

Finally.

Well It's been a while since I did the conversion now, but Jayneflake's post has spurred me into action. The pictures are bad, the descriptions are even worse but hopefully someone'll find it handy one day. The kit I ended up buying is the topyokes.com kit with the thin renthals. The kit comes with the yoke, risers & bolts, headstock bearing spacer (thingy), handlebars and a pair of HEL steel lines & banjos. When I received the kit one brake line had not been crimped at all, fortunately the lads at the local Pirtek sorted me out for nothing...

So here goes!


^ We removed the side fairing panels before getting started - probably not neccesary but definitely made everything much easier. We mananged to slide the left grip off by the "reverse condom" method. The HEL lines also went on at this point - we made a brake filling / bleeding tool from a turkey baster - brake bleeding in less than twenty minutes! Yay!


^ We removed the yoke before trying to undo the (properly threadlocked) steering lock mechanism, then removed the cip-ons. The threadlocked steering lock bolts were a right pig, plusgas highly recommended for this stage!

At this point we installed the new top yoke, connected the risers and mocked up the handlebar position. Once I was happy with the angle we drilled the pilot holes in the handlebar for the switchgear mounts. The throttle cables were long enough to be reused, though were mounted outside the forks instead of through them. The choke cable was long enough to be routed inside the forks as is standard. All wiring to the handlebars had plenty of slack after we unclipped it from the holders in the front subframe and re-tied it once we were finished. However the clutch cable wasn't long enough and rerouting this took us the vast majority of the time!

Now for clutch cable fun. After removing the cable from the lever we unclipped it from the holders and fed it all the way back through the frame. The only way we could set it up such that there was still slack on full right-hand lock was to feed it directly through the frame and round the outside of the forks. We then drilled and tapped the top yoke to accept an M6 bolt and a P-clip which holds the cable against the yoke to stop it rubbing (will photo this when it stops raining!) Fortunately for me the lever position was correct, angled slightly downwards from horizontal but any flatter and the cable would not have been long enough.


^ Unclipping the clutch cable


^ Old cable position


^ New cable route. This gave us about 4 inches to play with - not much, but enough.

Once we had the clutch cable installed the rest was a breeze to put back together. Squirrel_Hunter very kindly sent me a double bubble to put on which had already been cut to fit but it hadn't been chopped enough so we just modified the original screen by removing off the corners. Adjusted the throttle and clutch cable, bled the brakes and took it for a spin. What a difference! We did this just before a week riding around the peak district and, after 1500 miles in a week, I had no real aches and pains apart from a sore a*se! Since then I have covered another 5k with no complaints. I now find long periods filtering through london traffic much easier on the wrists and back, have more confidence in tight, low speed corners (always a hang up for me after a few embarrassing drops!) and can ride hundreds of miles in a day without being crippled! Result!

Of course I'm not gonna mention that sometimes, during superfuntimes rides I do miss the clip-ons but the majority of my riding is distance / commuting, not superfuntimes so, all in all, the balance is very good!

Finally just a comment on the quality of the topyokes kit & service. Apart from supplying me with an un-crimped brake line, and the fact that it took 6 weeks to arrive my only complaint was the fit of the yoke. The top yoke required some gentle encouragement to mount it onto the forks which surprised me greatly as the old yoke slides on and off with ease. Time will tell what this will do to the head bearing and fork tubes but come the new year the front end will get stripped down anyway for fork springs & oil so I'll check it all then. Also the steering lock only just engages - it didn't require modification but is a very tight fit! All in all if (when?) I do my next conversion I won't be buying from topyokes again... Jayne's kit looks lurvely, so that'll be what goes on the future gixxer

So kids, the take home lessons are:
1. Depending on your height / riding position you may need to fit a longer clutch cable to get the clutch lever angle correct.
2. Clutch cable, if long enough, will need rerouting. Throttle cable routes well round the outside of the forks, choke cable is fine.
3. Chewy's mirror extenders stop the handlebars hitting the mirrors.
4. Corners of the original screen will need chopping.

Finally a big thanks to Squirrel_Hunter for the double bubble and to everyone for their advice. Just like the Oscars.