remove/reinstall top triple clamp. easy?
 

hello all
my old decrepit body is asking for mercy. i have the buell pegs and the extra leg room is appreciated.
now it is time to pay attention to bar height.
rookie question: is it a pia to remove and then reinstall the top triple tree? i would need to remove it to drill for handle bar mounts. would someone be willing to post instructions?
thank you

It's very easy. There is a nut underneath the top tripple that compresses the bearings. You can remove the top tripple without worry of loosening your bearings. However, it may be a good idea to tighten/torque your head bearings, since you're in there.

Sidenote, you will also need a torque wrench to torque the nut on the top tripple.

May I suggest that you do a bit of research before using the stock top triple to mount handlebars on. You might decide that it's OK to do it that way. There are members here that feel that the stock triple is not strong enough for handlebar mounts.

crap. i just ordered an oem top triple clamp off ebay.

thank you
i have torque wrenches.

For what it is worth, and I am not stepping on Xeris's post, but as far as I know, nobody has had issues with the top tripple cracking or coming apart, because of it being to thin. It was just thought to be kind of thin material.

Have you considered using second gen Superhawk bars with Genmar risers.

Second Gen? Besides color what else is different?

The down angle is less, and enough so that they are more comfortable, for me anyway.

i ordered a top triple clamp off ebay so the ship has left the harbor and it is destined to pick up handle bars and riser clamps on it's journey.
hopefully the oem top triple will work out

any more detail on how to remove/reinstall the top triple clamp? which bolts do i loosen? anything to beware of?

You will find a fine wire circlip on the fork leg immediately above the handlebar, and you can't lift the bars off until that clip is out. You may need to slip the whole fork leg up a little through the triples to get access to the circlip.

After you have those out, the loosened bars should lift off the forks. You can unbolt the master cylinders if the hoses don't have enough freeplay for that.

Then undo the 30mm nut on the steering stem, and loosen the nuts on the top triple clamp and you should be able to wiggle this off the bike. The ignition is bolted to the underside of the triple so you either need to unbolt it or disconnect the other end of the cable. The bolts are Torx T40 and Honda helpfully use loctite on them, my experience is they put up a bit of a fight.

http://s629.photobucket.com/user/Cad..._1320.jpg.html

thank you cadbury, and everyone else.

i tackled it and boy was it easy. i had not seen cadbury's post before so i kept pulling up on the bars but they just would not come off. after ten minutes of frustration i found the circlips. lol

the two ignition bolts were really in there. lock tight is right. i used an allen key to get them out, not a torx. maybe i just got lucky

thanks again everyone