Bent handlebars after fall

[84K100RT]

Mine got bent in an incident. I have the RT bars.

Motorworks sold me replacement for I think £15 and they were as good as new. They sent ones for heated grips but I just cut the end tangs off. Took very little to change them BUT check your connections after. My clutch switch connector plug under the tank got dislodged and I had a no start. I knew about his little risk and a quick check sorted it out.

If it was me I would not straighten them. I found a lot of internal corrosion in the old ones I took off, all down at the bottom part and would be concerned as to how well they would last.

[Martin]

If you fit new bars, fill them with something like LPS 3  let it sit for a while them drain into a container for reuse. I do the same every few years with the centre stand. It stops rusting by leave a thick coating
Regards Martin.

[Motorhobo]

Finally got around to dealing with the bent handlebars, two years later. Yes, I've been riding with them bent but it's a sidecar rig and the only passenger is the dog and we only ride around this tiny hamlet we live in. Plus, the bike has had starting issues so it hasn't been ridden in nearly a year. So, time to deal with all this crap and get' her back on the road -- the dog isn't getting any younger.

Here's how I finally did this. Unless you're bike has a sidecar frame attached, make sure you have it tied down very good and the front wheel is chocked, because you're going to have to put a lot of torque on one side of the bar to get it to bend. I was surprised how much force it took.

Short story --
1) Get a long stiff breaker bar and use zip ties to position it below the bar that you want to bend downward.
2) Get some large hose clamps and clamp breaker bar to the handlebar.
3) Find something to support the opposite bar roughly parallel to the ground. I used a Harbor Freight roller stand but I probably would have been better off building something stronger wiith 2X4s since this HF thing is a piece of crap and wasn't really sturdy enough. Also, find a way to distribute the force between all the bits that touch the support instead of having all the torque concentrated at one point.
4) Make sure the front end isn't going to rotate when you apply the downward force. I used a long 2X4 between the fork tubes to neutralize that torque moment.
5) Push down on the breaker as necessary to bend the handlebar and check the system each time you do it because the breaker bar will shift around the handlebar. I had to adjust it three or four times.

It took a lot more pushing that I thought'd be necessary but it did bend back and appears to be fine. We'll see after I give it a ride once I get the starter issue sorted.

[beemuker]

 bent my s bars rolling the bike out of my shed [forgot to pump up my brakes after a front wheel removal] I unbent them a similar way. removed the grip and slid a pipe over the bar. bent it right back. this is with heated grips too.

[Motorhobo]

I thought about sliding a pipe over the end, but that probably would have just bent the short end relative to the long end. Mine were bent down by the root of the bar, not twisted at the handle end, see the pic at the top of the thread. The only way I could figure to get the torque angle I needed was to extend the long pipe section of the handlebar by attaching a long lever to it so I could apply downward torque on that section.

Anyway, point being it's doable both in your case and mine, so for most folks probably new bars aren't necessary.

[johnny]

greetings...

heat and leverage... do it... butts donts f-it up...

j o