For a while now, I've watching my the handgrips on the Stormtrooper getting more and more worn out:
The final straw came when it was in the way of some work I wanted to do on the RT. I moved it and got huge black stains on my hands where the rubber had broken down so far that it was more like soft silcone.
Time for some new ones then, and with the assistance of these instructions:
http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=498496
Some new parts soon arrived from the helpful folks at Motorworks:
Handguards off and Bar Ends removed, the BMW threadlock on those big Torx bolts is very strong. I had to spend a while rocking the bolts out to keep the threads clear for fear of blocking them and mangling the blighters:
I took a bit of care getting the old ones off. The heating wires are a little more robust than you might expect but I didnt want to balls up and cut one by accident so I carefully sliced the grips down the their length and rolled the remainder off:
The left hand one came off nice and easy by pulling on it and left very little of its insides on the plastic former but (and you know whats coming right?), the right hand one was a complete bugger. I had to cut quite a bit of the main grip off and that left a ton of rubber gubbins to slice and scrape away. At one point I resorted to swearing at it just in case I coould blister it clean. No such luck. Eventually though I got them both cleaned up, sprayed a generous amount of Value Hairspray on the bar and down the new grip and pushed them on. Nice and easy to jiggle into place and an hour later they seem solid enough.
I guess you could use any make of grip to replace the old ones. The only trick is remembering to order 2 right-hand replacement grips as the GS has plastic sleeves that hold the heating wires and that makes the overall diameter of the left-hand bar the same size as the right-hand side.
Another idea is the 'O-Ring Fix' (link below), It would certainly be easier to do and has no sharp-blade-heating-wire-interface risk - just drop the hand-guards and roll lots of the right sized o-rings into place (cue Ian Dury/Durex advert type sniggering).
I didnt fancy that as I dont like the grips to be very bulky. That may change as I get older and the invitable joint-rot creeps in!
O-Ring Fix:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?s=7f781a1477e39416d16c26a032daf74b&p=4799625&postcount=4
Job Done...
