Bikers Workshop Series

Part 17; Fitting Kuryakyn ISO Grips to a GL1800.

By Steve Saunders.

It's not a difficult job to remove the stock Honda handlebar grips from a GL1800 Goldwing. You can do it the quick way and just cut them off, or spend a couple of minutes more and remove the grips from the Goldwing without damaging them, just in case you decide you want  to refit them. It's literally a ten minute job to remove the old grips and fit new ones, even a first-time attempt will probably take no longer than half an hour. This page shows the way I do it, the particular Goldwing here is a 2002 GL1800.
If you need more than just the pictures and instructions here, go to the end of the page and download the video clip. The pictures on this page are actual screengrabs from the video.

Click the thumbnails for a bigger image.

Well, the weather was nice and dry for the middle of Winter so I decided to tackle this job outdoors. First shot shows the end cap being unscrewed from the throttle side. You can see in the second shot that the Kury grip with the larger hole is for the throttle side.

I decided to remove the old grips without cutting them. I ran a long, thin screwdriver in between the grip and the throttle (about halfway in) and wiggled it around. Then I pushed the screwdriver the rest of the way in and wiggled it around again until the seal was completely broken.

At this stage and after covering the paintwork with a towel, I sprayed some WD40 into the grip and this made it easy to slide it off.

  Trial fitting the new grip. If it's too loose, you will need to put a a couple of wraps of insulating tape around the slider after you have roughened the surface with some sandpaper. If the new grip is too tight, you  will need to shave some material from the inside with  a long thin blade. These ones fitted fine, so I proceeded with sanding the surface with 220 grade paper. Just a light rub is all it takes.

Applying the supplied adhesive. Apply more to the outside end of the handlebar as most of it gets shoved in towards the handlebar switch. If you inadvertently put too much adhesive near the switch housing like I did, just wipe it off. When pushing the new grip into place, ensure that you leave a small gap between the grip and the switch housing so that the grip doesn't get glued to or rubs against the housing. Push the grip in as fast as you can without stopping, as the adhesive sets very quickly. Make sure that the rubber pads are positioned where your palm normally rests when riding.

The same procedure for the left side. The pictures you see on this page are actual screengrabs from the video clip.

If you want to download the video tutorial, right-click the link here and "save-as" to a location on your computer. It's a large file so will take a while to download. If you have a fast connection then just click the link and play the clip live in your Windows Media Player.
ISO Grips video tutorial (Windows WMV format). 6 minutes, 15 seconds playing time. 10.5 megabytes file size.

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