Fitting heated grips

Fitted heated grips today and at one point it had me running inside to the computer to search tuning and tweaking. If you're about to fit yours you may be interested, if not ignore the rest of this post.

Thought I'd just post this up so the next time someone searches "fitting heated grips" or "throttle tube" they'll find this thread and it may be useful.

I have a K6 Pointy, so other models may be different, I don't know. If you have a different model and you know yours is different reply to the thread and let everybody know.

The left grip is glued on. If you slide a very thin screwdriver underneath it, you may be able to break the seal between grip and bar by working your way round the circumference of the bar. Then slide the grip off the bar. I cut mine off by slicing a stanley knife along the length of the grip, this was under the advice of the shop that sold me the heated grips, but now I realise I didn't need to.

The right grip is what sent me searching the forum, but I didn't find anything which is why I'm posting this. There was no way the heated grip was going to slide over the throttle tube. The original grip isn't glued on, it's held on by fitting snugly over throttle tube which is shaped so the moulded rubber grip stretches over the top of and is held in place by A and B on the picture below. If you stretch and prise the grip over A and B it would come off without cutting it. Because of A and B the new heated grip won't slide on.



What I did was slide back the rubber from the throttle cables and unscrew the housing from the bar (two screws in at the front). Disconnect the throttle cables from the throttle tube then you can take it off the bike. Then I put my electric belt sander upside down in a workmate bench and turned the throttle tube on the sanding belt until I had removed A and B, and I was left with the second picture above (careful not to damage the section where the throtle cables connect). Then refitted this to the bike and the heated grip went on easily (the screws for the housing are different lengths, longer one goes in the top).

Test the cables from the grips dont interfere with any of your controls at your thumbs and pull in your brake and clutch fully to ensure the grip doesn't interfere.

Everything else was very straightforward. Lift the tank by unscrewing the two allan bolts at the front of the tank, and remove the seat (by unscrewing the allan bolt from the plastic cover and pulling it off, then the allan bolt that holds the seat on, on both sides).

Connect the cables to the battery and route the cable along the same path as the main wiring loom up the left hand side of the petrol tank and through the gap in the head of the frame.

My control unit came with a sticky back pad and I have a faired model so I mounted it on the left of my speedo on the flat bit of "dashboard", then hid the connections and cables underneath (behind the sidelight).

When cable tying your cables make sure you can turn the bars to full lock, you can open and close the throttle fully without interference, and that the cable does not pull at the throttle and make your bike rev, especially on full right hand lock.

Glue your grips last once you are happy with everything else.

And that's it! The only gotcha's I came across. Hope somebody finds it useful one day.

That was the same problem we encountered- we just used a stanley knife to trim the throttle slider, the plastic was quite brittle because it was cold and it came away easily.

So are you pleased with them? I couldn't live without mine now.

Originally Posted by shonadoll

That was the same problem we encountered- we just used a stanley knife to trim the throttle slider, the plastic was quite brittle because it was cold and it came away easily.

So are you pleased with them? I couldn't live without mine now.

I haven't tried them on the road yet, but I'll tell you after my 350 miler next week!!

I tried with the stanley knife but the plastic was too hard it was just making a jaggedy mess, I decided sanding was the way to go.

[harvy]

took wire cutters and finished off with a file on mine. Left it on the bars though and just worked my way round.

That's exactly what I did ralph.

[chris8886]

what sort of glue did you use to stick 'em on?

[Wideboy]

Originally Posted by chris8886

what sort of glue did you use to stick 'em on?

comes with super glue but, i thought it would be to brittle so i used epoxy, didn't glue the left hand one as it held itself pretty well

how good are these? if theres one thing im fed up with at the mo its cold hands.

i will invest in these but i would rather know there worth the money first.

Originally Posted by sv_rory

how good are these? if theres one thing im fed up with at the mo its cold hands.

i will invest in these but i would rather know there worth the money first.

I'll ride to work with them tomorrow and Wednesday, but it's only 15 minutes each way. I'll ride to Birmingham (from Scotland) on Thursday or Friday, then I'll definately be able to tell you how good they are.

Look at Shonadoll's post above though, she seems pretty happy with hers.

I got mine in J&S accessories, Dr Bike at 24.99 (there was a tenner off). They are the old model Oxford HotGrips rebranded, with the analogue temperature control. Apparantly loads of folk having reliability issues with the newer digital control on the new Oxford ones anyway, so no great shakes to have the old model.