handle bar swap

[jmaccabe1]

Hi. I just bought a 1975 cb750. It's in really good shape other than needing a head gasket. I paid $300, and so far feel pretty good about it. Along with some other aesthetic catastrophes which came with this bike, I want to swap the bars with clubmans, which seems to be a fairly common move. But, I'm scared to cut the control wires. Is this the only way? Is there an easy alternative to the "periscope" style tailight?

[TOOLS1]

You do not need to cut the wires. They can be pulled out of the handle bars, and either ran back through the new bars, by drilling holes for them, or you can grind a small relief in the control housing for the wires to come out.
As for the tail light. There are several different styles that can be put on the bike. Some may require drilling new holes in the fender, but that is not hard to do. Just start looking for a light you like. There are several online sources. Even e-bay has several to choose from.
TOOLS

[Re-run]

cyclexchange.net has a decent bar selection too. You might check what they have. prices, I have found, seem fairly competitive.

[jmaccabe1]

Thanks Tools, I hadn't thought about grinding a groove in the control housing. That sounds like the plan. Thanks!

[jmaccabe1]

Thanks, will check out the site.

[lcochran]

Before grinding a groover in the control housing consider this.

If you ever want to go back to original or close to original your going to want those control boxes to look the best they can.

with that said, here is what i did.
I bought some clubmans from carpy's cb750 site.  He has great customer service and gave me a few useful tips, and a hot chick poster that was signed. anyhow

Disconnect the wires that are ran in the handlebars at the wire housing below the steering column. Disconnect all the controls, throttle, clutch cable, from the handlebars.  Pull the handlebars away from the bike.  You'll now have the old handlebars, two sets of heat shrunk wires running out the base of the handlebars and both black boxes with the controls in them.

Get a lot of WD40 and grease the hell out of both ends of the bars and start working with them feeding from one end pulling lightly from the other.  although a pain in the arse, its worth it.

You've just finished the worst part.

Take a 3/4"(i think) drill bit and drill at the point on the clubmans where they make the sharp angle back towards the tree's.  So ideally you'll have the two heat shrunk black wires coming out of your new clubmans heading in the same direction the old wires went, right down besides the speedo and tac area.

It looks super clean and you can trim the wires shorter if you feel so that the wire housing box below the steering column isnt too packed. good luck

[AjG]

I realize this was posted months ago but im about to embark on this with my 74 750.
With regard to disconnecting all the wiring to remove bars....is this done in the headlight or is there another point to disconnect?
I appreciate any insight i could get

[TOOLS1]

Welcome to the forum. I am not sure if the control wires on your bike go to the headlight, or to a little triangle shaped plastic box on the front down tubes. However either way, that is where you disconnect them.
TOOLS

[Ugo]

Man, i thought it was an easy job, like swapping handle bars on my mountain bike! Looks like there is more to it... It is my fisrt mod planned for my bike. As soon as i get it

[Re-run]

It all depends on the work you want to do. If you are not worried about hiding wires, then it is pretty easy unless your bar selection requires cables of different length.