handlebar question

[sludge]

what is the difference from the early pan bars 49-53 and the later pan ones? are they supposed to be one piece or two? is there a difference in the plungers and sleeves? THANKS.

[Lonnie]

You should reference Bruce Palmer's book, but the short answer is that they are significantly different visually. The 49-53 spirals attach with two visible screws (just ahead of the rubber grips). Early and later bars have the spirals attached with a screw in the end of the spiral, so that those bars have to have a grip with an open center. The original 49-53 bars have a closed end grip. The internals are different. Two versions of the 49-53 bars, first is 49 to sometime in mid-late 50 which had a non-reinforced center where the cables exit. These were prone to cracking there where the cables exited so the subsequent bars had a reinforcement. 54-59 bars are similar in the spiral attachment to the 60-later two-piece bars. When H-D went to the enclosed headlight (cowl) in 1960, the bars became two piece. For each version there are the speedster and the buckhorn or standard bars. FYI, the Sportster 2-piece bars are different visually but will interchange with the Big Twin bars.
Lonnie

[sludge]

Thanks Lonnie for the detailed information!

[MJW]

Has anyone had any experience with the repop bars available? I need the pull throttle and no advance with risers for a 51 fl. JP gets over 400 bucks (gasp). Mike

[MJW]

My bars broke in half on my trip up the Blue ridge parkway, Standing up to let some blood circulate thru my sore arse when SNAP! Middle of nowhere, I was able to make it to Mt. Aries and found a cool hardware store where they let me use their tools to make a bracket to link the two risers together which worked great! Mike

[AdminGuy]

wow- got a photo of that Mike?

[VPH-D]

The V Twin handlebars are sold with a warning that they may require some hand fitting. They do require several hours of tedious fitting if you try to use original components. Perhaps if you use the Taiwan internal components they might not require as much work.

I would imagine you are going to have to use early one piece bars
on your bike. However, none of those have a blank left side.

Have you contacted Faber Cycle in Michigan about bars?
VPH-D

[fabercycle]

I'm doing a "run" of Panhead buckhorns and speedsters right now.

You can get the early style 49-50, 50-53, 54-59, and 2-piece 60-64.

These are made using some NOS components, so, your sliders and end nuts are guaranteed to fit and NO fitting is reqd. Contact me if you are needing some @ tfaber@fabercycle.com or call 616-293-4811 from 8am-7pm.

It also looks like I'm kicking Tedds A_ _ on price too, and these are made in the USA, with genuine HD pieces.

My chrome plater does the new HD bars, so you can count on quality there too.

Tom Faber @
Faber Cycle & Machine