900 SS ie - new riser adjustable bars fitted - step by step

Recently I acquired a 900ss ie and although I really like this bike - the agressive riding position was proving just a little too agressive for my tastes - so I set about possibly fitting some bar raisers, crucially I wanted some that would have some angle adjustment as well. I found some on ebay from a company in China called MCMoto and ordred a set at about £85 delivered. To my surprise they arrived withing 8 days!

I have to say I was quite impressed with the quality and the machining on them - my mate pessimistically suggested let's just hope they used good aluminium and I then reminded him that the Chinese at present have all the good aluminium!


So Last week I decided to fit them to the bike: here's a quick step by step for anyone wishing to attempt the same.





These are the original clip ons and bars for reference


First thing to come off was the old clips and bar - cloth was put on the fairing to protect it - crucially from brake fluid later on





Heres the new clip on and bar in place for rudimentary fitting and sizing up purposes.
The bars are angle adjustable through a range of 8 degrees - 4 above and below horizontal.

 

Here's a close up of the new arrangement - as you can see the standard and quality is very good.


Here's a comparison of the new with the old. I know that the new one looks much longer than the old and well it is a bit longer but it's mainly a bit of an optical illusion due to the other bar still having all the equipment still mounted.



This is where I decided to set the fitment of the new bar itself - I laid them alongside and using a method of small pieces of sellotape I transferred the locationsof the holes to the new bar and then drilled them. I only drilled the throttle and switchgear locator as I knew in advance that the brake would have to adopt a custom position and would not really be able to use it's locator - which incidentally is a stud in the bar and not a spigot on the brake housing itself - so no worries there.


I transferred the alignment mark using a permanent marker and a right angle from the ducati clip ons to the new ones.



after assembling I fiddled with the equipment and realised that the fairing was just not going to allow full right hand lock on the steering without catching the brake master cylinder and I needed just 0.5 - 1 inch more of clearance.
So the fairing nosecone came off and I used a very old craft technique - brute force and calculated pulls on the fairing sections for the mirror mounts. The plastic of the fairing could go up and flex about 2" before it was obvious it was under stress. 1" would be plenty and with a bit of back and forth I convinced the subframe to go where I wanted it to

 

Happy with the location and angle of the brake lever I tightened it up and the fully tightened the clamp for the bars themselves - these are the two showing between the cables above.


I used about of 0.7 mm stainless sheet to create a new mounting bracket for the master cylinder for the front brakes. I moved the MC about 2" to the left and down a touch and now there is plenty of clearance when going lock to lock on the steering.



here's a close look at the new mounting bracket


and another here - now that I have the angles shape and location more or less worked out I will in future make a better quality bracket out of some aluminium.


and here's the clutch side all fitted following the same procedure - naturally the original bracket for the clutch reservoir was fine to use as it's much smaller.

 

Finally here is everything fitted - Oh also fitted new mirrors whilst I was at it!

For the first test ride I adjusted the angle of the bars to just under one degree below horizontal.

It was apparent though after about 15 minutes riding that i had traded one problem for another. - Now I had a problem with buzzy bars causing numbness in both my hands which didn't occur with the ducati bars.

The ducati bars as far as I can tell are steel? and have a smaller internal bore diameter compared to the new lighter bars which means they are denser and a teeny bit heavier. And for that and maybe a variety of other reasons these clip ons and bars are very much in tune with the vibes from the engine at cruising speeds.

But I have a solution for that coming in another thread...

I think I will adjust the bars down another degree and see how it feels - Coupled with the extra 20mm height advantage and the now much flatter angle than standard a bit more downwards will feel better - will update on my findings.

 

already had them off and repainted them = photos soon

 

here ya go = just for you!