* 14" Ape Hanger bars Install, Suzuki C800 / VL800 *

Finally finished my ape hanger install today, 14" apes on 4" rise giving a total 18". I went for a short ride and what a difference, it feels so good.

I have been wanting ape hanger handle bars on my bike since I bought it & looked on in envy every time a member has had them fitted. The final straw came when Exile fitted them to his M800 & the jealousy could be contained no more. So the first thing was to decide on the size of ape that was going to be fitted, which really does need to have proper consideration, as the last thing I wanted to do was to go to all the hassle of fitting apes, changing cables and splicing in too and extending the electrics. Freemo kindly allowed me to try his bike out for size when we met at the Ace Cafe, I really liked the feel of his 16" apes which I believe are on 4" risers but felt that for me being only 5'10" compared to his 6'+ frame, they were a little to high. I eventually decided on 14" apes partly based how it would feel and partly on looks as I felt that 12" apes wasn't as pleasing on the eye, to me at least than the slightly higher ones. However this is only ever going to be a personal thing and I am sure others may think very differently.
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Ape Hangers

My first acquisition was the 14" ape hangers, they cost £64 from the Ebay dealer V-TWIN MANIA. They have a 14" rise, 34.5" width, 8" centre and a 7" pull back. When fitted the bar ends are only an inch or so higher than the stock bars but that along with the now angled hand hand position over the more horizontal hand position of stock bars is so much more comfortable than it was.
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Brake Line

The brake line I bought was a braided brake line from the Ebay dealer WEZMOTO and was only £22.94 delivered, which also included an extra 9" added over stock, these can be bought in a variety of colour choices for the banjos and sleeves & they will make them at no added cost to whatever length you require.

Fitting the brake line is simples, bleeding it was a bleeding pain in the arse. I used a self bleed kit but it still took a hell of a long time before the fluid actually started coming through at the calliper. Be patient and persist and all that hard work and hand cramp from continually squeezing the lever will eventually pay off.

I ordered my hose, 9" over stock.
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Throttle Cables

The throttle cables were bought from on-line dealer CUSTOM-FASTENERS and was £26.95 delivered for both cables. They come in kit form that you cut to the desired length, solder & fit.

I made my cables up 9" over stock length.
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Clutch Cable - Re-Routing

The first job I did was to attempt to re-route the clutch cable rather tan buy an extended one after Captain Crash reminded me that Freemo hadn't bought one but instead re-routed his clutch cable when he fitted his apes. As it turned out this worked perfectly and saved a few £, so I was very happy with that.

In this first picture you can see how the the clutch cable originally routed around the back of the engine. The yellow arrow shows the cable routed up the back of the engine & the yellow one shows its route along the top of the engine frame. It is held in numerous places by re-usable cable ties which you will first need to remove.
You will find that you will need to undo/release the cable at one end so as to be able to re-route the cable & I would suggest you do that from the hand lever end as you will find that the other end will be the biggest bitch you could ever imagine to release.
After re-routing I would advise that you ensure that the internal cable is still moving freely by pushing and pulling the internal part with just a finger hold.




This is how it will look when it has been routed and I must thank Mr Suzuki for making the routing easier and neater at the clutch end by putting and angled kink in the cable. As you can see I have routed and cable tied the clutch cable to the rear of the PAIR valve & this holds the cable approximately 2.5 cm away from the head fins, so heat will not be an issue.




Here you can see the end result of this cable re-route, which is now with an extra 9" cable at the handle bar end and is now ready for the fitment of the ape hangers. It was the extra length gained by the clutch cable (9") that determined the extra length for all of my other cables and hose.


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Electrical Cable - Extending

First of all I cut in to the original sheath that surrounds and protects the wires, so that I could see the colour arrangement of the wires before doing the initial cut. I have read that a lot of people stagger the cut of the wires when doing this kind of cut and extend on wires so that they do not get a big bulge in the wires. However as I am not using any electrical connectors, there will be no bulbous area at either end of the install.

I cut the lengths of wire for this install at 10" lengths, in total there are 15 stock wires plus whatever else you may have installed on your bars. When both the original and extra cable has be de sheathed, twisted together and soldered, this will give me the additional 9" over stock that is required for my particular bars.

Tools & sundries used
8-amp wire (as this is what I had to hand)
Wire stripper
Soldering iron
Solder
2.5mm heat shrink (used to wrap soldered wires)
10mm heat shrink (used to re sheath the loom on the right)
13mm heat shrink (used to re sheath the loom on the left)
Heat gun or cigarette lighter, to shrink the heat shrink

On the left side the standard stock wires are as follows (10 wires)
2 x Black/Yellow (be careful to mark one of these either side of the cut, to avoid mixing them)
1 x Black/White
1 x Black/Blue
1 x Black
1 x White
1 x Blue
1 x Green
1 x Yellow
1 x Yellow/White

On the right side the standard stock wires are as follows (5 wires)
1 x Black/Red
1 x Black/Blue
1 x Black/Orange
1 x Yellow/Green
1 x Orange/White


Here you can see the pre cut stock wires from the right side.


Here is the first end of the first wire that I have soldered. If you are not someone that usually solders wires, you will be shocked at how little solder is required to get a join that is nigh on impossible to brake.


Here you can see that I have now heat shrinked the wire, to insulate it.


As you can now see, I have now joined, soldered and heat shrinked all of the wires at one end.



When doing the final soldering that completes the loom, I found that it was necessary to have something to lean on. This was due the weight of the existing wires and the fact that everything seemed to want to go in any direction apart from where I wanted it. I found by sheer luck that my wooden bike jack was exactly the height that was needed when stood on its end.
It is also really important to remember to slide some heat shrink on to one of the wires before soldering, so as to avoid having to separate them again and then resolder. I forgot twice, so I speak from experience.
Also before starting to solder this section you will need slide on the larger heat shrink that will form the outer sheath to the completed loom. If you forget to do this you will need to tape the wires.


And here we are with the finished loom.



This would at first seem like a daunting task but is a really simple and cheap way to extend your wires in preparation for ape hangers. The whole install of extending the wires for both sides took me about 4 hours from start to finish & thats with lots of interruptions as our house is like Piccadilly Circus at rush hour.


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Here are a few pic's of the finished Job

Looks great Dave, very tidy job with the cables

Your bikes looking very smart indeed mate, you must be well chuffed

Great Job Dave , Looks Ace

Thanks Crash & Sim, I am very pleased with the bike and in particular the apes at the moment, as they change the look so much. Yeah I did pay a bit of attention to the cables, as I have seen so many fitted with apes where a little attention to detail could and would have made them look sooooo much better.
I was surprised at the difference it makes to comfort and as Exile said when he fitted his "I felt like a real outlaw biker !!"

Well I'm not talking to you any more - who do you you think you are a bloody Hells Angel !!

Looks fantastic and a serious contender for best looking bike on the site. My kind of cruiser that. Nice job too and well worth the hassle with the cables. You definitely can't sell it now!



ps you'll have to get that other whitewall done now!

Oh God, you and Exile will be starting the Intruder outlaw biker club before we know it

Bluesman wrote:

Well I'm not talking to you any more - who do you you think you are a bloody Hells Angel !!

Looks fantastic and a serious contender for best looking bike on the site. My kind of cruiser that. Nice job too and well worth the hassle with the cables. You definitely can't sell it now!



ps you'll have to get that other whitewall done now!

Cheers John & yep this bike is here for the long haul for sure

As for the white wall(s), yes I really do need to crack on with the rear, I have slacked a bit there but it hasn't bothered me as I cant see the rear tyre when riding

Looks good Dave,the straight risers certainly make a difference on the "C" you must be well pleased.Very tidy.

Sure am Alfie, Cheers.

I want to change my stock extended risers for a nice set of straight 4" chrome riser's but I am having trouble getting my head around the bloody silly prices at the moment However its just a matter of time before I give in and just buy some regardless of price, I just hope I can find some nice straight ones that will look good but not break the bank.

The tool roll covers them up anyway Dave, save your pennies for them white walls.

Funny that, my son said a similar thing today. Maybe I will put new risers on the back burner.
Hey I think I am started to get nagged in this thread about my white walls, I'll start saying "yes dear" to you lot soon Seriously though you are right, I should crack on with that really.

Mr Intruder wrote:

Funny that, my son said a similar thing today. Maybe I will put new risers on the back burner.
Hey I think I am started to get nagged in this thread about my white walls, I'll start saying "yes dear" to you lot soon Seriously though you are right, I should crack on with that really.

Don't be sorry, just get on with it you lazy

She looks real good, but drop that rear a few inches and you'll fall in love all over again. I'm running 14" apes and a 3" lowered rear, the center of gravity is so much better. Just don't forget to tighten up the mono shock or she's a lil wobbly in the corners.

Looks good

Cheers Martin, sitting on your bike at the Ace Cafe was the push I needed to crack on with it mate

Looks like the coolest thing on two wheels. Once I've bought my new trousers (see 'burn marks on chrome aaargh') I'll have to start saving up for ape-hangers, tho the more sensible side of my brain tells me that at 65yrs old, I really should know better. But hey, life's too short, or mine probably is.....

Never too old for apes, they are old school after all!

Freemo wrote:

Never too old for apes, they are old school after all!

I agree & they look soooo cool.

Go for it Clive, be the coolest oldie on the block and put those pipe & slippers guys to shame.

......so thats the winter project sorted for this year.....

captain crash wrote:

Oh God, you and Exile will be starting the Intruder outlaw biker club before we know it

Hmmmm ..... now theres a thought Intruders MC ....... But seriously .. Looking real cool Dave , and don't they give a totally different feel to the bike!

Coming home from work 00.30 sun morn ... loads of student totty wobbling back from pubs an clubs , on my route (how convenient! lol) certainly gets attention and even a couple of 'em tryin to flag me down !!

But to preserve my air of mystery , I just nodded to 'em and rode sedately on .... after all us "outlaws" have to maintain a certain mystique ..don't you think !! :bike5:

exile wrote:

Looking real cool Dave , and don't they give a totally different feel to the bike!

I was shocked by the difference that they do make to the feel. When I lifted the original stock bars with risers, it simply made the bike more comfortable but the apes completely change the whole riding experience.
Best mod I have done by far, wish I had done it 2 years ago.

You know, chopping the rear end completes the job...

That will happen one day Martin, its a long way off yet but its on the cards for the future.

Hi Dave just an observation why dont you run your electrics through your bars to make it look cleaner,winter is round the corner and would make a good project for you,start each side of your tacho and bring the electrics up to the grips,inside the bars.The job you have done to the control cables look tailor made excellant.

Looks good Dave,the straight risers certainly make a difference on the "C" you must be well pleased.Very tidy.



What I meant on this statement was on the m800 the risers are curved at the top,which in my opinion makes the bars look stange,would rather have straight risers if I was to to the mod.

I did try doing a test on 1" circumference, 2' long piece of pipe with the wiring and got the following result......

Left hand side would work relatively easily due to having only 5 wires but not such an easy task on the left due to there being 10 wires to deal with.
I found that to run all the wires into the pipe and out together on the left would require a hole of sufficient size that it would (in my opinion) effect the integrity of the pipe. The reason for this was simply because the wires would need to bend in and then out of the hole at a sharp angle & the pliability needed just wasn't there.
The other option was to split the wires & run them in two groups of 5 and have two smaller holes that would be at the top of the bars separated by an inch or two but I also failed here too. I just couldn't get the second set of wires to come out of the hole. I found that the second set was extremely hard to manoeuvre due the the first already being in the pipe. I then incorporated a piece of wire in to the second set which ran down the wires about 5" or so and heat wrapped it in so that I would be able to bull the wires through the hole but the wire hindered me by catching in the existing wires, stopping the electrics from even getting near the hole. I then removed all the wires and started afresh with another plan.
This time I ran a long piece of wire down the tube and left it in place while I got the first group of wires through. I then heat wrapped the wire back in with the 2nd set of electrics and tried to pull them through but just couldn't get it to pull out of the hole.
I had tried talcum powder in the pipe to help the wires through and when that failed I saturated the inside of the pole with WD40 and still failed to get the second set out of the hole. I just couldn't seem to get it around the bend.

My next plan worked rather well.
I decided to throw the pole & wires across the garden in temper, smashing terracotta plant pot in the process. This worked first time, however it did annoy the Mrs slightly.

I could run the wires out the front with the cables but I prefer them where they are. The short and long of it mate is this, I have tried & I have failed!

Thanks for your reply Dave,that is the good thing about these forums,we all get good advice first hand.Sorry about the plant pot though,someone will ask for a petty cash fund to be available for such events,for as you know we all get excited now and again.I have always said that you give a comprehensive report to your mods and this is no exception,I hope someone out ther reads your reply and comes back with an answer,if there is one.

Very informative Mr I, as always.
Even your failures make good reading

alfie92 wrote:

Thanks for your reply Dave,that is the good thing about these forums,we all get good advice first hand.Sorry about the plant pot though,someone will ask for a petty cash fund to be available for such events,for as you know we all get excited now and again.I have always said that you give a comprehensive report to your mods and this is no exception,I hope someone out ther reads your reply and comes back with an answer,if there is one.

Back in the eighties , before it became a rich mans hobby ... I built my last chop/lowrider ! Now the wiring on that was twelve wires in total !! I had to completely redesign the switchgear internally , and the starter button was relocated to the side of the electrics box! Unfortunately the wiring diagram I used (which was universal for all jap fours at that time ) has long gone the way of my youth and virginity .....lost in the mists of time !!

But what I'm leading up to is ... maybe , a man of Dave's infinite resources could possibly track down a simplified wiring system for the bike , which would then feed through the bars ... maybe?

Alternatively , he could say ... naaa happy with it the way it is , and go for a ride instead !!

looks cool dave great job freemos probaly your man for imfo or idears allthough you dont seem to have a problem with electrics good sugestions exile got to be ways to get rid of sum of those wires graet pics dave

Not really bothered about where the electrics go now to be honest. Most people run them out the front with the cables but I prefer them where they are as its tidy. I will change the cable ties over to chrome ones at some stage but thats about all.

Looks cool as it is to me, very neat and tidy rather than go through the bars and risk weakening them I'd just use chrome cable covers of Ebay. but like I said it looks great as it is.

Good point, yes I was considering buying the chrome covers
Any excuse to add some bling

Hi Dave, the bike looks good, like the cable lines especially the throttle cable a lot of work must have gone into that !! the wind deflectors are looking good when will you fit them ? regards to all Doc Cox

Good point Doc, how did you do the throttle cables in the end Dave did you buy them ready to fit or did you solder them / use screw fit nipples as was discussed in the other thread?

Doc Cox wrote:

Hi Dave, the bike looks good, like the cable lines especially the throttle cable a lot of work must have gone into that,
regards to all Doc Cox

captain crash wrote:

Good point Doc, how did you do the throttle cables in the end Dave did you buy them ready to fit or did you solder them / use screw fit nipples as was discussed in the other thread?

I am a bad man as I have not yet given credit where credit is due, thanks for your help Doc
The throttle cables were made from the kit that I bought as previously mentioned on another thread and as Doc Cox popped over I got him to make up the cable and solder the nipples on while I stripped down the bike. A very clever and skilled man that I am lucky to have as a mate.

Mr Intruder wrote:

I have now updated this thread to contain info I had written in the other sections as well, so that the one thread is a little more comprehensive.

Great write up Dave, that is much better now you have it all in one place. That will really help out a member that is considering doing this modification

captain crash wrote:

That will really help out a member that is considering doing this modification

Thats the plan mate

Ape installation seems like the most complex 'must have' cruiser mod but without a doubt the most desirable IMO. If ever I get another and I'm sure I will one day, high bars will be a priority but knowing me I'll probably take advantage of someone elso who has done all the work! Nice write up

Excellant write up Dave,other people doing this mod certainly have a good platform to start with now.

Wow! That's fab, thanks for that. Think I will order the throttle cables today and wait to see how long I need the brake line to be.

Regards

Graham

Glad the thread has helped Graham.  

It's exactly what I needed. I've not done anything like this before, I'm not very mechanical, more electronic/electrical so, the electrical side for me is a breeze but, the mechanical side not so! But, your step by step thread has given me the confidence to have a crack at it!
 Thanks once again.

Regards
Graham

Just ordered a new set of ape hangers, my last ones were slightly distorted after an rta 13 months ago. Apparently they don't like the bike landing upside down on them.  This time I have decided to go from 14" to 16" apes, What a great feel apes give the rider over standard bars. Will post some more pics when done.

Great write up Dave..... hope you get your new 16 inchers on soon so you are free to enjoy your bike again !

  Yam

Thanks Yam, it's been a long time coming.

I liked your bikes with apes on dave so that'll mean your black twirly twisted metal ones will be up for grabs then 

captain crash wrote:

so that'll mean your black twirly twisted metal ones will be up for grabs then 

:nnoo1: I will keep them for my Virago.

   watch out Dave ..... the vultures are circling ..... keep moving those body parts !