Got new parts yesterday and spent the last couple days installing. This post details the process.
Speedymoto top triple clamp, some brake reservoirs and Cox radiator guards. I'll say right now that I'm not a huge fan of the Cox guards. They are nicely made, but the design in junk. They attach to the rad with zip ties and the dust shield, or whatever it is, behind the lower triple grinds against it when you turn the bars. This is because the radiator guard does not accurately fit the contours of the radiator.
This is what I'm replacing. It's a Rizoma top triple and faux clip-ons that are a matched set. FOR SALE NOW IN THE PARTS SECTION. They are nice and give a comfortable riding position, but I wanted more aggressive and lower clip-ons (I'm 23, my back can handle it).
The whole thing started with removal of the controls. This was super straight forward, but it helps to drop the instrument cluster and headlight bracket first. I also suggest you pay attention when you take apart the throttle housing (I'm not great on terminology here) as well as the light switches/choke assembly. If you haven't done it before, getting it back together may frustrate you.
I then started unbolting the Rizoma set up, which was also very straight forward. The faux clip-ons bolt onto the triple clamp over top of the fork tubes. The pre-load adjusters are reached through these gold tubes pictured below that then have knobs screwed onto them. The tubes and the knobs were secured by set screws. There was a fair bit of corrosion around these and getting them off took a lot of patience and a rubber mallet. They are a bit marred now, but as you can see in the picture below, they bottom of the gold tubes it completely hidden by the bars.
And off! Loosen the pinch bolts on the forks and the steering stem and the top triple came right up.
The next part was installing the new Speedymoto triple. The process was the reverse of the last step, but I encountered some problems. First, the pinch bolt on on the steering stem nut is bigger than the Rizoma one. It cannot be reached from the left side due to the ignition assembly.
It could be reached from the other side with steering at opposite lock, but you would need to cut the short end of your 6mm allen key to get it in there. I was at a friend's so that wasn't an option. I will tighten it later, but this is what I did in the mean time.
I removed the steering stem nut and placed in the top triple.
Then I tightened the pinch bolt on the triple, not to the prescribed 14Nm but just tight/loose enough that i could still rotate the steering stem nut. Then, I threaded the steering stem nut down and torqued it while pushing the triple down the forks. It's not a real solution, but it allowed me to put the most torque possible on that pinch bolt given the situation.
The next problem I encountered was that the fork tubes were not flush with the top of the triples. They are recessed. I don't know if this is because they are designed for other Monsters with a different geometry or what. My fork tubes were recessed about 5mm. You can see it in the picture below.
The triple was bottomed out on the lip of the steering stem nut.
One solution would have been to machine the bottom lip of the triple clamp so that it would sit lower over the steering stem nut. However, this would have caused the steering stem nut to stick out the top.
The other solution was the drop the front end of the bike by loosening the lower triple and sliding the forks up. This is the approach I took, but you will probably not like how I did it. We were lacking a lower triple front stand or any sort of hoist to take the weight off the suspension. This is what I did.
I shoved some stuff under the engine so that the bike wouldn't completely crush itself should the front end go flying down the forks. Then I tightened the clip-ons 5mm below the top triple (using a 5mm allen key to create an accurate gap on each side). Seen here
You can probably see where this is going. I loosened the pinch bolts holding the forks on the top triple first, leaving the one "sorta tight" pinch bolt on the steering stem nut alone. Then I loosened the lower triple pinch bolts bit by bit.
The left fork slid up first under the weight of the bike and was stopped by the clip-on hitting the bottom of the top triple (all held by the sort of tight steering stem pinch bolt).
The right fork was slow coming, but, with a rubber mallet whacking the bottom of the fork and lower triple, it came up until the clip-on made contact with the top triple. The pic below is IZ_, but you can make out that everything came up flush.
I tightened everything back down to spec. In the end, the forks were only moved up approx 4mm. I am looking for feedback regarding how big a change I should expect in handling due to the change in suspension geometry.
Next is the clip-ons. The biggest PITA I've ever gone through. I mocked up the right bar first, and that's when I learned why bars have holes drilled in them. I got the bars used, but they had no holes. Figuring out exactly where to drill was a big pain because the position of the holes is relative to the position of the other controls on the bar.
A few things to keep in mind when drilling:
1) Mock up everything on the bar using the end of the bar and the grip/throttle tube (depending on which side you're doing) as your starting point. Then mount things towards the middle.
2) If you have bar ends, make sure your grip on the throttle tube has enough space. My throttle tube was slightly too far out, causing the grip to rub against the bar end. The result was an unwanted form of cruise control.
3) The little nubs on the inside of the controls that go into the holes on the bar (for those who haven't seen before, they stop the controls like the starter button from spinning round and round the bar) are the best tool for marking the spot to drill.
Put some white out or something else on the nub, then close the control over the bar in your desired position. If you do it carefully, you should have a white dot right where you want to drill your hole.
4) At the end of it all, if you find the controls are too high or too low (but not too far to the left or right), you don't need to drill new holes. Just loosen the bar at the base of the clip-on and twist it before retightening. Especially on the throttle side, it doesn't matter how high or low the throttle is, a twist is a twist. The brake and clutch masters don't have nubs so adjust as you like.
This may seem like common sense, but positioning things on these bars required a lot of mental gymnastics and visualizing for me. It did not come right away.
Anyway, that's what I did. It makes it feel like a superbike. I like it:
Now to lower the headlight and gauge cluster. I'm thinking the Corse Dynamics headlight kit on Motowheels. I hate that make the beast with two backsing u-bracket with a passion.
