Vibration at handle bars

When I have been riding for a bit the vibration on my Z1 is making my hands numb. Is there anything I can do about this, or do I just need to suck it up?

Make sure you are not supporting your body with your hands. Use your stomach muscles if you have to lean a lot. Keeping a light touch.
Bar end weights might help. Also changing the gearing.

I've known about this product for a lot of years,but have never tried it...have a look...


www.barsnake.com/

Some people also use lead shot.

I read about that barsnake and thought about buying one, but I'm cheap. Tried my own invention. Found a six inch 3/8" pipe nipple, filled it half full with bird shot. pounded a couple egg sinkers in the ends of the pipe to hold the shot inside, then siliconed it into the throttle end of my handle bar.
I borrowed the idea from my dead blo hammer. If you're not familiar with a dead blo hammer, it has loose shot inside it, which absorbs impact and stops it from bouncing like a regular hammer does.
It actually works to some degree.
Right at about 4000 to 5000 rpm, or 60mph or so, I hardly feel any vibration at all and my hand feels fine.
But if I'm running about 80mph, it still vibrates, and my hand goes numb.

I spent a lot of time on this problem last year and here's what I discovered. Synchronizing your carburetors can make a difference. Otherwise after many unsuccessful experiments I took a box of 50 cal. lead balls for my black powder rifle, slightly flattened them by gently tapping with a hammer, and filled the bar end to end. It's rather heavy but once replaced on the bike it makes no difference and has been fine for over a year. Bar end mirrors also helped. I found early on those bar end weights look cool but had little or no effect on reducing the high frequency buzz. I think the problem may be age related since my bike sat for many years and I don't ever recall the handlebars vibrating when it was new and I rode it a lot of long trips. The lead balls can be removed simply by taking the bar off and holding it straight up and down and letting them fall out. Those sponge rubber looking grips soak up a lot of the vibration as well. A little loctite on the bar end mirror mounting mechanism and I can read the license plates of the cars behind me.

Do be aware that on some KZs (my 650 is one), some of the wiring is inside the bars, so a device like the Bar Snake will not work.:S

1973Z wrote:

A little loctite on the bar end mirror mounting mechanism and I can read the license plates of the cars behind me.

Just as a warning to anyone thinking of using loctite on plastic in a high vibration spot, I bought a plastic oem fork cover for my 250 the other year and put it in with the right size screws. Lost a few screws before I finally loctited it. Looked at it when I was freshening her up at the start of this season and forcing the piece to bear the vibrations like that cracked it on both sides where the screws go in... oops :blush: :S :laugh:

Also make sure your motor mount bolts are tight. Loose bolts can cause vibration.

Just wondering how harley riders take all the vibration those things give off:huh: Is everything rubber mounted??

jdsmithinc wrote:

When I have been riding for a bit the vibration on my Z1 is making my hands numb. Is there anything I can do about this, or do I just need to suck it up?

These guys may help you out: www.manicsalamander.com/

I've used them on my beemer (a flat twin) and it makes a nice difference. It shifts the annoying vibes out of the rev range that I normally use. For example 120km/h is about 3700rpm and the mirrors vibed too much to be useful. With the weights, 3000-6000rpm became clear and smooth (90km/h-160km/h).

They do say they're limited help on in-line fours, but who knows?

Sam

in the off road world we take and fill the bar end to end with silicone.one tube and the squeeze gun deal a few minutes and your done.don't even have to remove the bars,and it made quite a difference on buzzy two strokers,fwiw.