Buy 2 Rubbergrips for right Side of either 1100GS (thicker, i choose them) or 1200GS for 7,20 EUR each. Buy a can of Hairspray for 1,29 EUR (which i will never use again) disasemble Protectors, peel off old rubber and make sure not to damage the little Cables. a good amount of hairspray on handlebar and in new rubber. slip them on and reassemble the whole stuff. ready. Thanks for the inspiration, it was 1.5 hrs of work and it feels great with new, thicker grips.
<BR> Yea I was gonna say. You got your girl out there with a French manicure shaving the old grip off with a knife. She's a keeper. Nice little writeup. <BR>
That's the first comment!? Sheesh at least say something about those purdy finger nails. . --- I had to get rid of the OEM grips ASAP too. They are terrible! I went for "SUPERBIKE Grips" by ProGrip, my favorite. Have to by two packs though. They are soft and a good diameter. Take your time removing the OEM grips, its not easy. Do not nick the wires! This is a good mod.
<BR> Nice mirrors, which brand are they? The mirror surface looks like two 'flats', instead of that wide angle curved glass stuff. <BR>
Funny, my wife helped me do exactly the same thing. I think women have more patience for that sort of stuff. Nice post, BTW.
I found using hair spray is not necessary. Stick the grips in water with a very small amount of soap, slide the grip on then off the bar. It will go on and off very easy at first. Repeat the on-off process until the grip drys out just enough to give some resistance ,usually 2 or 3 times, then slide it home. No chemicals and no sticky mess next time.
Nope! My 25+ years of riding on and off road tell me that any grip movement is not only annoying but can be dangerous. Once you start getting water (or mud, sand, muck if you take a spill off road) your soap will get slippery again! Think about that, next time your doing a water crossing... (Nice water crossing pic by the way.) Please use some sort of adhesive! Hairspray is popular because it's slippery at first, and then sets up. If it wasn't a safety issue, do you think the factories would use glue? And for good measure, I put a couple wraps of SS safety wire around the grips on my street bikes and dirt bikes. Many grips have groves for safety wire. Sorry bemiiten.
Good post. Ive been doing this for years. I dont like the skinny grips provided with the 1200 series. I prefer the 1100 grips. They are fatter and have a more ergonomic feel. Just be careful not to damage the heating coils. I dont use soap. I use alcohol or alcohol brake cleaner to lube. I also use a little 3M super weatherstrip glue, peel back the collar of the newly-installed rubber and put a dab to cement the grip in place.
Nice write-up! Two comments: Grips can be easily removed if you have an air compressor and a trigger activated air nozzle. You just slip the nozzle under the lip of the grip closest to the centerline of the bike and let it blow. It will kind of inflate the grip like a ballon causing it to pull away from whatever adhesive was used, and while it is inflated, you can slide it off. Apart from removing things in the way like handguards, the process takes less time that to read this paragraph. The other point is that you only need to spray your adhesive (clear spraypaint works well, too, and is not water soluble like hair spray) into the grip cavity. When you spray it on the handlebar, it gets pushed in front of the grip as you slide it on and does little good.
i have always used compressed air to remove and install grips. can you use it with the 12GS? if the OEM grips are not "stuck" on to the wires, then it should make removing them very easy.
Agreed. But on my 05, a lot of glue was used and the air nozzle didn't work. It was a labor intensive process.
no way ... they are glued on and the heating wires were melting it all together. u have no chance for compressed air at the 1200gs with heated grips. the standard version w/o heating .. yes, there it can maybe a good choice of waepon. hairspray is not slippery when wet .. as far as i know .. but i will see and i will tell if something happend.
No, wasn't mine. I threw away the can I bought two years ago (to install new grips) about a month ago.
Ive found that the blow nozzel method doesnt work too well with the stock 1200 grips. The heating coils make a rough surface that tends to grab the rubber. Also, there will be factory glue that must be carefully cut through. The best way that Ive found to remove the old rubbers is to simply cut them and carefully roll the pieces off. You dont need to preserve them.
Why use two right side grips? What's the difference between the left and right grips? I checked, left and right do have different part #'s. Thanks! -Steve