Flipped / upside down mirrors on Yamaha Bolt

Upside down mirrors on Yamaha Bolt

To my eye the stock mirrors look goofy when the the stock bars are raised as much as they have now with the 5.5" pullback risers. Not really a big deal, but since the fix cost less than $20, I thought it would be worth it.

How did I flip the mirrors?

I ordered a couple of aluminium mirror clamps (for 1" bars and with M10 regular threads) from ebay. I first tried to mount the clamps between the grip and the lever by moving the lewers inward a bit. This worked well for the right side but was a no go on the left. The mirror clamp prevented the clutch lever from moving freely.

1" mirror clamps with M10 threads

Yamaha Bolt stock mirrors

I then proceeded to mount the clamps just below the bend on the bars. The mirrors are tiny bit too much on the inside, but it would seem that the view is still very good. I get a small amount of my sides on the inner corner of the mirror, but the mirrors are still giving me a less obstructed view than before. My hands or shoulders aren't visible in the mirrors at all.*

* DISCLAIMER, the mirrors have not been tested on the road yet as there is currently snow on the ground. I will update this post once I get to try the mirrors on the road.

UPDATE
They work! I can see a little bit of my sides from the inside corners of the mirrors, but I would call this a success. If you can come up with mirrors that have say 2" longer angled stems, the better, but in my opinion the mirrors are totally ok like this. I like that the mirrors are visually (vertically) very close to the bars.

Mirrors clear the tank with a wide margin

 

For the mirrors to clear the tank, I needed to remove the angled extensions from the stems. This was good also because now the mirror stems had two regular threads on both stems instead of the lefty thread Yamaha has on the other side.

The rather short stems and angled mounting clamps make the mirrors look less noticeable and blend in nicely with the bars.

Yamaha Bolt with flipped mirrors

Yamaha Bolt riser bushings / washers - the final solution

The custom made washers (4) have finally been installed and the handlebars now have virtually no play at all. The effects on vibrations is a big question at this point as test riding is not possible due to the sub zero temperatures.

Below you can see the amount of play before the installation

Top down view on how the bars are now

UPDATE [16.8.2016]

Picture courtesy of SS Custom Cycle

Just a heads up. It seems that SS custom cycle has these for sale now so you don't need to have ones made when installing taller bars or risers. SS Custom Cycle website

Pullback riser installation on Yamaha Bolt

5.5" pullback risers on Yamaha Bolt

Easy peasy, right? That's what I thought, but turns out that's hardly the case. For a proper rise and pullback you need more than 2" of rise and for that to be possible you need to

1. change all cables for longer ones (clutch, throttle, brake)
2. reroute the electrical wires going to the bars

Tank must come off for the cable swap

For the cable swap you need to first empty the front brake system of fluids, remove the tank and then of course you will need to refill and bleed the brake system, remove old and nstall the new cables. I bought the Yamaha factory extended cables mainly because I could get them much faster compared to ordering them overseas.

The Yamaha factory extended cables aren't really that much longer. They will not work for proper apes.

Now for the risers themselves, you need to figure out what models and lengths will work because the speedo will get in the way if your new risers are the wrong length or shape. For example, I don't think pullback risers shorter that 4.5" will clear the speedo.

5.5" risers leave plenty of room between the speedo and bars

Once you score the risers you need to also remember to order top clamp bolts and the actual riser bolts as the metric top clamp bolts will most likely not fit and risers tend to come sans the actual riser bolts.

- I bought my risers and top clamps at J&P cycles. (had to order them separately also)
- The risers bolts were ordered from SS Custom Cycles along with some other stuff
- The top clamp bolts were chopped down to 7/8" from 1" bolts as UNC bolts seem to rarer than diamonds in here.

The actual installation, while slow, went relative smoothly thanks to the instructional video by Chaparral Motorsports.


Results
I'm very happy with the new ergonomics, but I have a few worries too. The bars now have much more leverage which in turn means that there is a lot more play/movement in them because of the rubber mounts in the top triple tree.

Yamaha provides metal "stiffening washers" with their mini apes ( see above video at 10:21) , but since I kept the original bars I will have to find some on my own. I'm hoping the http://www.yamahastarbolt.com/ forums will come through and someone will post the measurements of the washers so I can either buy them or have them made.

My own measurements would suggest that the washers should be around
outer diameter 35 mm
inner diameter 20 mm
Thickness ~ 2 mm

Judging from the installation video the metal washer is a slightly loose fit.


EDIT
Score!
Apparently the Yamaha Mini ape replacement washers are:
outer diameter 1.375" = 35 mm
inner diameter 0.84" = 21 mm
Thickness ~ 2,5 mm
>> See here (Reply #48) 

The closest I could find is DIN 433 M20 washer which is:
outer diameter 34 mm
inner diameter 21 mm
Thickness 3 mm

It might work...

The top clamps also tighten "all the way" meaning that there is no gap left on any side. This means that if the bars start to move there is no room for tightening them. The bars feel solid for now, but I'm left with an uneasy feeling.

The top clamp looks clean this way, but may not be tight enough

The Yamaha extended cables work pretty well with the 5.5" rise, but I don't see that there is room to go much higher. Rerouting the cables will likely help, but my cables are now running the "OEM route".

Extended factory cables for Yamaha Bolt

Yamaha Bolt extended factory cables

The cables arrived today. I'm still missing bolts for the risers, but now that I have the cables I can at least get started on the handlebar ergos project.

5.5. inch pull back risers for Yamaha Bolt

The 5.5 inch Milwaukee Twins pullback risers for Yamaha Bolt (maybe...)

The risers arrived (from J&P Cycles). No clue yet if I can get them to fit, but judging from everything I've Googled, it should be doable. I'll need to change the cables first AND source the bolts for the top clamps. The product info doesn't state what kind of bolts I need nor does it say anything on the package. Getting UNC bolts here in soviet Europe is not so easy. Most hardware stores don't stock UNC bolts to an extent that you could just march in a see what fits.

EDIT: apparently I need four 5/16"-18 x 7/8" bolts

SIDE NOTE
Inerestingly it seems that the Yamaha factory Apes or Tall Handlebars - 1TP-F61B0-V0-00 as they are officially called come with hard washers that replace the rubbers insert inside the triple tree. This is apparently to reduce the amount of play on the tall bars that by nature will have more leverage than the stock ones.

I found this out by watching the excellent Chaparral Motorsports handlebar installation video.

Jump to around 11:12 for the part showing the washers.

I've posted on the http://www.yamahastarbolt.com/ forums in hopes of getting good close up pictures of the washers and maybe even measurements. I don't want to buy the bars just to get a pair of washers. 

Screen grabs

Yamaha Bolt riser rubber washers still in place

The new "hard washer"

PLEASE, go visit http://www.chaparral-racing.com/ they deserve some business for doing such good videos

Ram mount X-grip phone holder for Yamaha Bolt

Test installation of the Ram Mount X-grip.
I will be getting risers so the installation is just to see how the parts fit together. I have two different length arms for the mount, but it seems that bu using the longer one I can get the phone pretty much smack in the middle. The reason I want my phone mounted this way, is that I have plans for using as a navigator. Previously this hasn't been feasible because of mobile internet restrictions on other stuff, but it looks like I can retire my old TomTom soon. I'll post more about this later.

Ram Mount ball the Yamaha Bolt stock riser

The ball is pretty unobtrusive

Iphone on the X-grip

Quite ok so far

EDIT Feb. 11th

The mount was moved to the center of the bars once the pullback risers were installed. The main reason was that soviet europe could not provide me with a suitable UNC bolt that would fit the risers.