Fitting New Handlebars & Grips

[Guest]

Hello all,

I have a 1983 GS450T (though it has an L tank).

After a lot of thinking and research, I have decided that I want to go with Superbike bars. The current bars have quite a bit of rise and the angle kills my wrists (particularly my left wrist) on any ride longer than an hour.

Anyhow, I've been looking at new bars, and I thought I'd like to also swap out the stock mirrors for something a bit more low profile. This would probably mean bar-end mirrors.. and that would probably mean new grips, as the stock ones have a closed end.

Does anyone have any experience keeping the stock controls / kitty, and using aftermarket grips and bar ends? Is this possible? I suppose I can figure this out myself by taking it all apart, but I'd like to have as much of the stuff that I need prior to taking it all apart and then figuring out that I need something else that will take weeks to arrive.

Thanks.

[eil]

Should be a pretty simple affair, really. The main thing to watch out for is that when lowering bars, you sometimes have to re-route the clutch and/or throttle cables, or buy shorter ones.

If the bar-end mirrors clamp around the ends of the bars, then you have to make sure there's enough room on the bars to slide the controls etc inwards by about an inch. You can always cut holes in your stock grips if they're in decent shape.

[technostructural]

Should be a pretty simple affair, really. The main thing to watch out for is that when lowering bars, you sometimes have to re-route the clutch and/or throttle cables, or buy shorter ones.

If the bar-end mirrors clamp around the ends of the bars, then you have to make sure there's enough room on the bars to slide the controls etc inwards by about an inch. You can always cut holes in your stock grips if they're in decent shape.

Thanks eil.

I have done a bit more reading, and it appears that cutting the ends off/open is standard practice. I hadn't considered it, but I am now. I think my grips are the OEM Suzuki ones though, so I'll probably order some cheap aftermarket ones that have an open end so as to not muck up the "original" parts from the bike.

As for the change in distance for the cables, I think I should be OK. I have heard of people going all the way down to Clubmans and still rigging up ways to tidy them up. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) my GS450 is drum brake in both the front and back. It doesn't stop very well, but it makes this task a little bit easier because there are no concerns about kinking brake hoses, etc.

I'll post some photos when all of the stuff arrives and I've got it put on. Since I'm ordering from eBay, I imagine this will be sometime in September.