Can't fit the Helibar triple clamp on

[Potential]

I was irate because I was hoping to go on a local club ride on a route I'd been looking forward to, and the weather's nice, and I'm impatient. Of course it is not a huge deal but it is annoying. And it's not a poor fit -- it literally doesn't fit at all; it was machined incorrectly.

Does anyone know if the steering stem on a 2008 is different from an 06-07? I don't know if it's relevant but the sticker on the packaging of the clamp says "2006-2007 FJR1300A/AE" even though the part number is HRT076-2, which is supposed to work with the 08. It makes me wonder if Heli silently made a change in 2008 to enlarge the steering stem hole but I got old stock. I ordered from casporttouring.com.

 

[Fred W]

I was irate because I was hoping to go on a local club ride on a route I'd been looking forward to, and the weather's nice, and I'm impatient. Of course it is not a huge deal but it is annoying. And it's not a poor fit -- it literally doesn't fit at all; it was machined incorrectly.
Does anyone know if the steering stem on a 2008 is different from an 06-07? I don't know if it's relevant but the sticker on the packaging of the clamp says "2006-2007 FJR1300A/AE" even though the part number is HRT076-2, which is supposed to work with the 08. It makes me wonder if Heli silently made a change in 2008 to enlarge the steering stem hole but I got old stock. I ordered from casporttouring.com.

OK, I retract my derogatory comments. You aren't really irate. Your just peeved!

Yes, the 2nd gen headsets are all the same, so 2006 -2009 are same.

 

[Potential]

Well the good news is Helibars says they'll ship me a replacement via 2nd day air so I should have it this week. I'd sent them an e-mail explaining all the problems with pictures included. Here is what I documented:

I am now certain that the Helibar clamp is defective; it does not fit around the steering stem.

This is what an install attempt looks like:

Close-up of the steering stem in the hole; it just barely peaks above, you can't even see any of the threads:

There's a hard metallic clang sound when pushing them down to this point; something is stopping it hard. I tested each fork hole individually and the fork legs went through them easily, and the helibars in the above photo can be rocked left or right a bit, but not pushed straight down.

So then I did this test:

I tried putting them over the steering stem upside-down since this allowed me to bypass the fork legs completely, as you can see. And it still did not go on! The steering stem is just about flush with the exit hole.

This is the steering stem:

The threaded portion is the same thickness as the clamp, and in my install attempts, the threaded portion goes in the clamp but the stem cannot go any further. And the above close-up reveals the unthreaded part is actually slightly wider than the threaded part. So that explains why I can't install it -- as soon as it gets to the point where the unthreaded part is supposed to slide into the clamp, it stops hard.

Here's a photo of the stem hole in the clamp, you can see the threads rubbed against the side because it's a tight clearance, leaving no room for the unthreaded part to go in:

So the stem hole of the clamp was mismeasured, or there was a manufacturing defect.

 

[Fred W]

Doing some armchair quarterbacking here...

Are you 100% sure the interference is the shoulder of the steering stem hanging up inside the hole?

It looks to me like, from the picture where the triple clamp is upside down, the bottom has been relieved to clear the castelated adjustment nut and tabbed washer seen in the 2nd to last picture. Could it be that the bottom of the clamp is hanging up on the shoulder of that?

 

[Potential]

Nothing else is interfering. The stem goes into the hole only up to the beginning of the unthreaded portion, then it stops, regardless of whether or not the clamp is upside-down. When installed correctly, the unthreaded portion would be within the clamp and the threaded portion would be outside it.

 

[Fred W]

Nothing else is interfering. The stem goes into the hole only up to the beginning of the unthreaded portion, then it stops, regardless of whether or not the clamp is upside-down. When installed correctly, the unthreaded portion would be within the clamp and the threaded portion would be outside it.

It will be interesting to see how the new one fits.

 

[Potential]

I received a replacement clamp today from Helibars; they sent it out on Tuesday via 2nd-day air so I received it today. It fits correctly! They said there'd been "a tooling issue" around the summer of '08 that resulted in a batch of bad clamps, and they'd sent a notice out to their resellers, but I guess either casporttouring didn't get it or they ignored it.

 

[Fred W]

I received a replacement clamp today from Helibars; they sent it out on Tuesday via 2nd-day air so I received it today. It fits correctly! They said there'd been "a tooling issue" around the summer of '08 that resulted in a batch of bad clamps, and they'd sent a notice out to their resellers, but I guess either casporttouring didn't get it or they ignored it.

That is great news. Maybe you should provide some feedback to casporttouring so they can purge their stock, if they have any of that batch left. I'm sure the next guy that orders one from them would be grateful not to have to go through what you have.

So, was the difference in the bore diameter enough that you could see it?

 

[Capt. Bob]

I love happy endings. :yahoo:

Hope the clamp helps your riding position.

We move on.

 

[Potential]

I have one more problem. The final step is to reroute the throttle cables, but I'm having trouble getting them to the other side of the brake hydraulic lines; there's very little room and the throttle cables are very stiff. Do I just have to be very forceful? I don't want to break anything.

EDIT: Nevermind I figured it out eventually. By turning the bars full right lock, I had enough room to push the throttle cable down into a nook on the far right, and then bring it up behind the hydraulic lines.