Your stock Harley has something exposed that you may want to coverup. There’s some ugly issue on your new bike that is screaming foryour attention, and if you are a little crafty, you can work throughthis problem. What’s this nasty problem? Your handle bar controlswiring problem, that’s what. You know those heinous wires that comeclipped to the outside of your handlebars for all to see. Internalizethose wires, and then they will be out of the picture for good. Readon and I’ll explain the basics of hiding those unsightly wires.
You are about to make a commitment that won’t be impossible toreverse, but before you decide to wire your handlebars internally,make sure that you have chosen the correct bar for you and your bike.Stock bars on a Harley are polished stainless steel. They lookgood right when your new bike rolls off the showroom floor, but inabout a year they’ll look duller than a board meeting in Duluth.So you might consider swapping out the stock bars for chrome ones.There are literally a million choices and styles, and prices canrange from $35 to $300 for something exotic. Make sure that you arecomfortable with how the bars feel and look on your bike before youcommit to running the electrical wires inside the reigns. Nothing ismore frustrating than riding all day in the saddle of anuncomfortable bike, especially if it belongs to you.
There is still one other consideration to be addressed before youswap handlebars. Make sure that your clutch cable, brake hose andthrottle cables will still reach if you decide to change out yourbars. There is a fairly large zone where all of your stock hoses andcables will reach when you change your bars. If you choose asignificantly taller or wider handlebar, you’ll be swapping out allof those cables too. If the bars of your dreams are going to involvea full cable swap too, I’d suggest taking your bike to a qualifiedmechanic because of the safety issues associated with that type ofundertaking. (There’s a tech right here on Bikernet that covers all aspects of a highbar transformation.
OK, now you’re ready to tackle the issue at hand, hiding thewires. On a ’96 or older Harley, there are 14 different color-codedwires in the bars, seven on each side. On the ’96 or newer bikesthere’s only 12 wires to deal with, six on each side. Regardless ofthe year, the wires are inside a vinyl loom that has been clipped toyour stock handlebars. On one end of the loom are your switches andcontrols by the grips and at the other end is a connector that plugsinto the rest of your wiring harness.
There are two types of wire loom connectors, ’96 and newer bikeshave a “water-tight” Deutsche style connector. The earlier bikes havea “Mate ‘n Lock” connector. You’ll need to remove the dash and fueltank to get to the connectors on Softails or Dynas, which is probablylocated near the top frame tube. Be careful to drain your tanksbefore you remove them, and yes, gasoline is flammable. Don’tmess with gas in your garage if you don’t have proper ventilation,and certainly never mess with fuel if you have a gas water heater inyour garage. Can you say “Boom?”
Once you’ve found the connectors location and before you un-plugthem, grab a sheet of paper and take some notes. There are twoseparate connectors, one for each side of controls on each bar. Makesure you note which plug went where, and all of the color-coded wireshave a specific location too. Make a diagram of the plug with eachcolor-coded wire tied into their appropriate location in the plug.This step will save you a ton of cussing later on when you don’tremember what went where.
The Deutsche connectors have an orange cap on the end, which youcan pry off with a small screwdriver. Once that cap is removed,you’ll see a plastic clip, which holds the wire terminal. Gently prythe tab away from the connector and pull each wire from theconnector. The earlier “Mate ‘n Lock” connectors have a metal barbbuilt into the wire terminal. You’ll need a small pick to bend thetab back inside the connector, to pull each wire out of theconnector. Bend the tab back to it’s original position and you canreuse the same terminal.
Now it’s almost time to remove your handlebars from the bike.Remove the clutch lever and the brake master cylinder at the clampslocated on each control. Don’t remove the clutch cable or the brakehose from the levers unless you want to trade them out for chromepieces, or just feel like making this a much bigger project for noapparent reason. Make sure to protect your front fender from danglinglevers. The switch housing bolts on the right control hold thethrottle housing and cables. Loosen the cable adjusters on eachcable, and then you can remove the throttle grip. The handlebars cannow be removed along with the switch housings. Remove all the rest ofthe switch housing away from the bike to save your aching back.
Lets get to drillin’. Your new bars may be pre-drilled so you canskip this step. If you need to drill the bars, center punch theappropriate locations under the switch housing locations for thewires to enter and at the center of the bar under the riser for thewires to exit. Start drilling with a smaller bit (Approximately1/4-inch in diameter) to make a pilot hole, and then drill at least a1/2-inch finish diameter hole. Make sure to de-burr the edges insideand outside of each hole with a file or sand paper so they don’tlater cut into the wire insulation. (See the burr tissue test in thehighbar wiring article.) That would be very bad, and you might notknow it until you are stranded at the furthest point from home or acell tower.
Find a piece of stiff wire and run it through the inside of thebars to use as a trail-blazer guide for the rest of the wire loom.Take the end of the single wire and wrap it around the connectors asstreamlined as possible. Get some of that “Strapping” tape you hadleft over from mailing a package last Christmas and wrap it aroundthe bundle of wire, you are about to pull through the bars.Electrical tape will do, but I’ve found that the strapping style oftape does not get snagged inside the bars as easily as the rubbertape, and it seems to grip a little better when you are tugging on it.
Gently pull the wire loom through the bars. At this point youmay want to double check to make sure that you are pulling the rightside switch wires through the right side of the handle bar. Youwon’t be the first to pull them on the wrong side. A simple way toremember which bundle is appropriate for each side is that the bundlewith the Violet wire (Vio-LEFT) is on the left side and the bundlewith the brown wire is on the right side.
Mount the bars in the reverse order described above back on yourmachine. Replace all the wire terminals and the connectors in thesame place that you removed them from (this is where those notes youtook come in handy). Then turn on your ignition switch and make surethat everything functions correctly before you re-assemble the switchhousings. Adjust your throttle cables to allow for maximum throttlewithout binding. When you release the throttle grip, it shouldreturn all the way and not bind if you adjusted it correctly.
Securely mount your fuel tank and dash. Don’t forget the Loctite.Wipe all of your fingerprints off your masterpiece with a soft cottoncloth while you bask in the afterglow of pride and accomplishment.Mission Accomplished.
On the other hand, you might feel like this is a project for aprofessional. Hopefully you can now better appreciate and understandthe skills involved. Internal handlebar wiring is not as simple as itsounds at first glance. As with most anything you modify on yourbike, craftsmanship is king, and if you are not confident in yourabilities shoot yourself and have your widow sell the bike to me.Otherwise you might make a disaster out of what could have been a funproject.
Remember, Keep the rubber side down.
–John Covingtonjohn@surgicalsteeds.com
©2003 John Covington/Surgical-Steeds
Back toSurgical Steeds…
