BMW R1200R R1150R/T F800 K1200R R1100R/T R1250R RnineT Message Board

i cant seem to get the bolt in the diagram in, its way to tight in there, nor does it really align right.


any words of wisdom here

Evening: When I installed mine-I found getting those started first then installing the two lower ones afterward worked. Those two top ones can be a bit of a challenge. Plan on some wiggling. Do not forget the Thread Locker !

will give it another try later today, but this is not the smartest design slight disappointed in sw-motech.
good thing i got them cheap

ok i can honestly say this is the worst design i have ever came across, they may be a great bars for protection, but it is the biggest pain in the a.. i ever had to install
even though i made it work more or less, i am actually thinking of replacing it with a product that fits better

What problems did you have with installing the SW Motech crash bars. I just purchased a set and would like to know in advance what I am getting into. I have not heard of anyone else having problems installing them.

Thanks
Roger L

roger l wrote:What problems did you have with installing the SW Motech crash bars. I just purchased a set and would like to know in advance what I am getting into. I have not heard of anyone else having problems installing them.

Thanks
Roger L

look at the diagram posted, due to that bend in the bar its very hard to get that screw in, hard to get to it with any tool.

also in my case the holes on the right side just did not align properly at all, i actually had to drill the hole in the bar to make it slightly larger(referring only to the top bolt in the diagram)

besides that the install is easy and straight forward

roger l wrote:What problems did you have with installing the SW Motech crash bars. I just purchased a set and would like to know in advance what I am getting into. I have not heard of anyone else having problems installing them.

Thanks
Roger L

Roger, the first thing to do is separate the hardware and mark it for reference. The stuff is side-specific and it is not a good idea to get it mixed up. As noted, the bolt on the upper left side is a bit of a problem because of the location and interference with a direct shot at getting a wrench on it. I used a small offset open-end wrench to set it in place. Right side bars are much easier to to work on. Don't tighten anything until you have all the bolts started, then torque them up and enjoy.

ka5ysy wrote:

roger l wrote:What problems did you have with installing the SW Motech crash bars. I just purchased a set and would like to know in advance what I am getting into. I have not heard of anyone else having problems installing them.

Thanks
Roger L

Roger, the first thing to do is separate the hardware and mark it for reference. The stuff is side-specific and it is not a good idea to get it mixed up. As noted, the bolt on the upper left side is a bit of a problem because of the location and interference with a direct shot at getting a wrench on it. I used a small offset open-end wrench to set it in place. Right side bars are much easier to to work on. Don't tighten anything until you have all the bolts started, then torque them up and enjoy.

+1 here. I remember the bars being a pain to install, but if you jiggle/finesse them they work fine. As said above, keep all R/L hardware separate.

the left side was actually more or less ok with jiggling, even though i think the bold in diagram A should been slightly longer and tapered so its easy to start threading, the right side was completely off and no amount of jiggling helped, had to drill the hole in order for it to line up, may be i just got a bad set of bars just saying i was expecting better products, but hopefully i wont have to take them off anytime soon lol

nylife wrote:the left side was actually more or less ok with jiggling, even though i think the bold in diagram A should been slightly longer and tapered so its easy to start threading, the right side was completely off and no amount of jiggling helped, had to drill the hole in order for it to line up, may be i just got a bad set of bars just saying i was expecting better products, but hopefully i wont have to take them off anytime soon lol

Wonder if you received the NEW bars for the 2011? The bars should fit 07-10 just fine.

got them used from someone, so pretty sure it did not come off 2011.
i mean i made it work i was just expecting an easier process, looking at the design of the bars i dont see why the bend was made where it was, it could have easily be made in different place.

Thanks for the information. It sounds like only one bolt is hard to get to. I will keep the hardware seperated from left side to right side. Hope for the best.

Roger L

nylife wrote:got them used from someone, so pretty sure it did not come off 2011.
i mean i made it work i was just expecting an easier process, looking at the design of the bars i dont see why the bend was made where it was, it could have easily be made in different place.

Hi Roman,

Sorry to hear the right side was a pain to install. To answer the above question, they were off my recently purchased '09. They unbolted with no problem, but I don't know that the PO didn't curse a bunch during the installation too. In any event, hope they are trouble-free from here on out.

Cheers
Roland

Hey Ronald yeah chances are the assembly on the where that bolt in the diagram A goes is slightly off, which can probably be adjusted, but the bars should be able to accommodate those difference between bikes and they dont, but like you said hopefully i wont have to deal with it ever again

Hi,

The top bolt was a real pain to fit. On my bars the top hole was slightly from the bolt hole on the engine. My solution was to elongate the hole with a round file to make them line up correctly. After that it was easy.

Steve.

i just drilled mine as it was more then a little off

I installed the SW Motech bars tonight and I must agree with Nylife the right side was a REAL pain to get on. I needed to slot the top hole up almost half the diameter of the screw to get the screw to go in. Once the hole was slotted it was easy to install. Either somthing changed on the engine or the jig that SW Motech uses to weld the tab on the right hand bar has changed. I did the left side first and it installed fine.

Roger L

Yep, something changed somewhere

Ckaine wrote:Evening: When I installed mine-I found getting those started first then installing the two lower ones afterward worked. Those two top ones can be a bit of a challenge. Plan on some wiggling. Do not forget the Thread Locker !

I had problems with getting both sides to fit with mine. I ended up doing this too, but even starting the top bolt was difficult. A combination of difficult to hold the bar in the ~just~ the right way to get the bolt to line up and hands that aren't small not fitting into the tiny gap very well, made for what I'm sure was an entertaining hour long spectacle per side with me randomly cursing then trying something different until it finally worked.

I too was surprised they were so difficult to fit, but as soon as I got the top bolt on, the bottom ones fit perfectly.

Did mine last week - what a nightmare. You need hands the size of a baby with the finesse of a pianist and the strength of the hulk

Look good when they're done though