Running wires internally in your bars

[Unimoose]

Most of the bikes I am looking at have all the electrical wires on the outside of the bars. Obviously it's a much cleaner look with them internally wired though. I believe I understand the process involved. Undo the wiring making sure to mark stuff for reassembly ease, drill a hole in the bottom side of the bars under the dogbone, fish the wires through and reconnect. It sounds simple enough but like most things I sure as heck doubt that it is. If someone has done this before I'd love some advice, tips and tricks before I go about hacking things up and have to post a thread in this section screaming for HELP!!!!! Stuff like what size hole to drill would be a good place to start. Thanks!

[Dave63]

You need to drill a hole, approximately 1.25 times larger then the diameter of your harness. Afterwards, you need to spend the time to file and smooth the drilled hole's edges, as to not cut ot damages the wiring that will be in it. The Duetsch plugs will have to be removed, and a wiring color chart made to determine what wire goes back in one hole.

You'll need to tape the wires together with a piece of safety wire in the pack, with a tiny hook on the end. Fish the wire through the bars, the carefully push/pull the wiring down the bars and out the lower hole.

The holes will be placed at the end of the dimple, under the bar, where the grips and control mounts, at the farthest point away from the end of the bar. This is the factory relief where your wires sit under your controls.

The exiting hole (Remember 1.25 times the size? Now this hole has to be an oblong hole, like 2 holes next to one another, then the center cut out) will be in the middle on the bars, on the bottom, so the wires exit from the bars, and go towards the top triple tree.

Some triple trees have an oval in them to pass the wires through, as well.

[Unimoose]

Now I'm already glad I asked because I was under the impression that I would be going in the opposite direction with the wires (center out not grips in). Thanks Dave!

[WideOpen]

One other thing to note if you haven't already found out is if you have a TBW bike you will have to replace the grip sensor assembly with a special one for internal wiring. I've done almost all the mods on my FLHRC but I did have the dealer change the bars and do the internal wiring.

[Crocodile56]

Blow a string down the tube with air makes snaking it easy, string with a small piece of plastic bag tied to it, stick in end of bar and blow!!! A lot easier than wire!

[Fat Bob]

Blow a string down the tube with air makes snaking it easy, string with a small piece of plastic bag tied to it, stick in end of bar and blow!!! A lot easier than wire!

That works pretty good but I like to use my shop-vac to suck it through, setup like Croc said. Only thing is you better hang on to that string or the vac eats it so fast you can't grab it...

[Unimoose]

Now onto my next question, yes it does say terminal rookie as my user title for a reason.ed I just got a set of bars from another forum which are dimpled at the controls. Do I drill out the dimpled part of the bars or further in from the dimple to the wires come out of the bars then get held into the dimpled area by the controls? Needless to say I want to make sure I do this right before I end up with a ruined set of bars from being over anxious! These bars are about 2" higher than my stock mini apes, what's the likelyhood I can go without extensions on the wires or should I get some just in case?

Thanks guys!

[Unimoose]

Okay now I'm being told not to drill out the dimples or anywhere near them because the bars will collapse. WTF did I just waste money on these bars or are they usable?

[Ironhead]

now that aint right, mine are dimpled and drilled, and the hole is at the inner edge of the dimple
look at the second pic Dave posted, notice the hole for the wiring at the edge of the dimple....

they won't collapse.

once you drill them, make sure you carefully deburr the holes

[Unimoose]

now that aint right, mine are dimpled and drilled, and the hole is at the inner edge of the dimple
look at the second pic Dave posted, notice the hole for the wiring at the edge of the dimple....

they won't collapse.

once you drill them, make sure you carefully deburr the holes

That's what I was seeing too. Obviously I won't cut out the entire dimple because that would weaken the bar, well at least in my terminal rookie opinion, but cutting out the inner part of the dimple to Dave's directions shouldn't do anything more than drilling out the bar normally.