I took the bike out for a relatively long ride this morning around campus and developed some hand fatigue from squeezing the clutch lever too much. I can genuinely say the fatigue is not from the Clubman bars. I love the bars and can’t see why so many people complain about them so much. They are quite comfortable. I attributed the hand fatigue from from the old clutch cable. Luckily, I already had a brand new Motion Pro clutch cable sitting in my studio. I hadn’t thought I needed to replace it, but this morning my cramped hand muscles sealed the deal.

Old cable.

Nothing really wrong with it, I just think replacing it will help with my hand fatigue. If it doesn’t I’ll have to maybe get a modern adjustable clutch lever.

A simple process really. The only snag I encountered was the bit on the clutch end of the cable was slightly larger than the original.

I filed down the upper portion where the bit meets the cable, just enough to thin it down so it could slide into the lower lever slot.

Everything else worked fine. The new cable feels a little better, but not significantly different. I’l eBay the old cable this week.

It could have been simpler…

…and I made some mistakes along the way.

It looked simple enough until I realized the Clubman bars weren’t pre-drilled or slotted. This makes sense. It would be virtually impossible to manufacture bars that accommodate for all makes and models of motorcycles.

So I had two choices: route the wires on the outside of the bars (messy looking) or route them through the bars (clean).

I wanted a clean look and decided to route through the bars. Since the bars didn’t have any holes or slots, I had to drill them myself.

A fresh set of Clubman Ace Bars. Not as low as clip ons but they look cool and feel great.

First I had to mock them up to figure out were the control assemblies was going to be and mark were I need to start drilling. Notice that this set of Clubmans has the sharp corner weld. Its nearly a 90 degree angle and pulling wire through them was miserable.

So the two points I decided to drill where near the control assembly and about an inch and half from the corner weld. A few incremental drill bits later and I had four nice sized slots to feed and pull wire. I also used my dremel tool to clean up the edges. I didn’t want the sharp inner rim to cut or strip the wires.

I wrapped the exposed portion of the wires with masking tape, and in true MacGuyver style I fashioned some string from a shoelace and tied one end to the wrapped wires.

I spent all morning pulling wire for both sides.

Things I learned:

1. Some type of lubricant is required. I used liquid soap.

2. Never route through the bars. Its not worth it. I spent all morning doing it. Granted, it looks super clean, its just not worth the trouble I went through.

3. My stock control assemblies had little metal tabs that fit into pre-drilled holes in the stock bars. These tabs prevented the controls from sliding. I tore these metal tabs off thinking I wouldn’t need them and as a result my controls are sliding. I’ll figure out how to stop that later.

Here are is a before and after photo.

From 70′s japanese stock to 60′s London cool in one morning.

I picked up a set of Clubman Ace bars. They wont be as comfortable as the high stock bars but they are going to look cool as shit.

I also ordered a set of new 39mm racing pod filters so I can remove the old chunky stock filter that probably hasn’t been changed out in 30+ years. Evidently the pod filters let in more air to the carburetors. Depending on who you talk to using pod filters will require a re-jetting of the carbs. I won’t know until after I install them.

Every thing already shipped out and should be here by next weekend. I also ordered a new throttle pull cable and new clutch cable.

I picked up a set of teeny tiny rear turn signals to replace the gargantuan ones I removed earlier. The casings are aluminum and the lenses are a smoke amber color. The small signals won’t pass inspection but at least the traffic behind me will know which way I’m turning.