Clubman Bar Conversion

The first modification for the CB200 was the handlebars. I like the more aggressive look and riding position of the Clubmans, plus they make your bike go faster. I'm not kidding. With the stock bars and upright riding position, the air you catch in your chest significantly slows down the bike and causes rider fatigue. The Clubmans get you down out of the wind and give you a little extra weight on the front tire at speed.

Step 1 Disassembly
Seems like a reasonable thing to do on a Friday night...

1. Disconnect the battery.
2. Remove the mirrors. They are held on with jamb nuts, loosen the nut and then unscrew the whole mirror assembly.
3. First you pull the headlamp out of the housing two screws at 4 and 7 o'clock allow you to drop the headlight. (That's one screw removed at 4 pm, discussion about how good these new handlebars will look and then one screw removed at 7 pm. Based on this "bench-racing" method you'll see how long this project takes.) Lay a towel on the fender to sit the headlamp on.
4. Unbolt the two nuts that hold the bucket on the ears and lay the bucket down with the lamp.
5. Unbolt the riser caps. This will allow the bars to be free. Lay a towel on the tank and lay down the bars.
   
6. Unbolt the two nuts that hold the speedo/tach cluster and lay it down with the headlamp.
7. Next trace the two wire bundles that come out of the bottom of the handlebars into the headlamp bucket. Disconnect the wires at the pig-tails. Honda color co-ordinated all the wires which makes this pretty easy. But... chances are someone else has already been in this bucket and if any wires have been replaced you may not have matching colors. So this is a good time to tag every wire and take some pictures.
8. Remove the rubber boots off the controls. Our bike had one. It was held on with zip ties around the wires. We cut the zip ties and carefully pulled the boot off over the brake lever.
   
9. Release the handlebar controls. There are 2 screws in the bottom of each control.
   
10. When you release the right control the throttle will slide off. You have to lineup the throttle cable with the slot in the grip and you can side out the cable end. The left side grip will come off with a little effort. Use Scooters trick, pryup the grip with a small screwdriver or awl and spray some Windex on the bar. Work the grip off as you spray on more Windex.
    
11. Each hand control has a bundle of wires that go into the handlebar and exit a hole in the center. Earlier you disconnected the ends of these wires inside the headlamp. Now you gently pull the wires out of the hand control holes in the bars. (You do not disconnect the wiring in the hand controls.) Doing this requires a firm pull, but don't tear them out. To ease the pain you can spray some wd40 in the bars. Ours came out fairly easily, but I've heard/read horror stories.
12. At this point you have a mess.

We mocked up the bars and patted ourselves on the back. On Saturday we would "slap on the new bars and go for a ride".