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fjindy66

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Everything posted by fjindy66

  1. Fair question--it's mainly due to a couple of things: 1) Initially I thought I was going to end up a bit short when mounting the grips, switchgear, and mirror mounts back on the bars due to the slightly shorter straight length of the handgrip ends of the bars, so I pushed the switchgear in as far as I felt I could and still get the mirror / lever mounts to install properly. As they are now, they're just starting to creep onto the bend in the bar, but seem to work out OK. 2) At the time since I thought I might end up short (which, due to the washers I had to place between the handguard end mounts and the threaded adapters, I did), I shortened up the Oxford grips by about 1/8", which as it turns out I probably didn't have to. Is the fit of everything on the bars 100% perfect? Maybe not quite, but for my hands the comfort is worth those couple of minor anomalies. If I did it again, I could probably slide the switchgear back outboard a little to minimize the gap you point out, but not the mirror/lever mounts. I thought about making or having someone make a couple of spacers to put between the handguard adapters and the bar ends to space them out, but for now the washers seem to do the trick. Regarding the grips themselves, if I got a replacement set of Oxford grips (these are the "Premium Adventure" version) I would not bother to trim them--and that would address at least the visual part of the gap you asked about.
  2. Got a few pics today as promised that will hopefully help depict the sweep and angle of the grips on the new Renthal bars: This first one is from more or less the rider's eye view. The second is from more or less above while standing on the pegs. This last one was intended to be more or less level with the bars, to show how with sufficient rotation the ends will angle down just a bit which takes the 'twist' mostly off of the wrists and elbows when you relax your arms. Cheers & Merry Christmas all!
  3. The bars do have a bit more sweep than stock--I'd say another inch or so on each side. I find that braking pressure is much more evenly spread across my hands compared to the stock bars. I do agree that they are also slightly narrower. The addition benefit for me is that the additional sweep can be used to angle the ends down a bit to reduce the twisting on wrist &elbows so that I can keep my arms more relaxed. I will try to get a picture or two tomorrow that may give you a better idea of the differences. The Renthals are very slightly narrower--less than 1/4 inch.
  4. From Photobucket, you right-click and get four options: Email & IM [span] [/span](starts with "http://s913.photobucket.....), Direct [span] [/span][span] [/span][span] [/span](starts with "http://i913.photobucket.....), html [span] [/span][span] [/span][span] [/span](starts with <a href="http://s913.photobucket...), or IMG [span] [/span][span] [/span][span] [/span](starts with URL=http://s913.photobucket....). So--four options, and apparently only one works--I was trying the Direct or HTML options. Which one is the correct one for this forum? I originally clicked on the insert image button, but wasn't sure which version of the URL was the right one. I clicked on Photobucket, but that just launched the site--I figured it would be more fully interactive--but not so much. Thanks again!
  5. Not at all--what did you do? I'm abviously fumbling my way through this. The process isn't very intuitive, at least for the first couple of tries. Thanks for the help.
  6. OK--after resurrecting my Photobucket account, here are a few pictures of the new set of bars, both before and after reinstalling the handguards (hopefully this will work, as I've not tried posting pics yet--if it doesn't, I'll give it another try: http://i913.photobucket.com/albums/ac335/DRoevers/IMG_2314.jpg The finished product, minus handguards at this point. I also installed the Oxford heated grips while I was at it. http://i913.photobucket.com/albums/ac335/DRoevers/IMG_2309.jpg I had to get an M16 x 1.5mm tap to thread the bar ends for the handguard adapters. http://i913.photobucket.com/albums/ac335/DRoevers/IMG_2369.jpg The right hand grip assembly after reinstalling the handguards. http://i913.photobucket.com/albums/ac335/DRoevers/IMG_2371.jpg And the left, also showing the back side of the mount I fabricated for the Oxford grip controller. Hope this helps.
  7. After a couple of thousand miles, I decided that the stock bars were a bit too straight for me--I needed a bit more sweep and downward angle to relax my wrists. I bought a set of Renthal Fatbars with the Streetfighter bend (I think) and installed them. The one tricky limitation is that the straight length of the bars for mounting the controls and grips needs to be about 6mm longer. I got the ends of the bars threaded to remount the hand guard adapters, and managed to reassemble everything. I needed a couple of spacers between the handguard ends and the adapters. But aside from that things went back together OK. Overall it is a good mod, as the bar angle better matches my wrists and is therefore more comfortable. I also added Oxford heated grips at the same time for the colder weather--also an excellent mod.
  8. That's exactly where I got my hardware--probably cost about $6 or $7 total for the four stainless steel screws (note one bag had slotted heads, and the other dual slotted/Phillips, which was kind've annoying when I discovered that), a bag of four 5mm washers, and the four nylon spacers. It was definitely worth a try for the price. I'll be interested to see what you think. Most of my commuting is on an interstate, so with the traffic and trucks it can be hard to judge the different since the air that you are riding through is so dirty to begin with.
  9. I put 1/2 inch spacers under my screen in all four positions to allow more air up underneath it, using M5x0.8 30mm long screws. It does seem to be somewhat better, especially when there's not too much traffic ahead. I had a Givi Airflow on my '12 VStrom and loved it--it wasn't the best looking screen, but it was really effective and quiet. Hopefully Givi will offer something in that line that somewhat integrates with the bike.
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