Kuryaken Iso Grip Installation Advice

Kuryaken Iso grips are very popular. I installed them on my bike and on my wife's (Mylilpony) 1300R. They installed easily and I used the small tube of super glue that came with them to install them. This past weekend on a long trip, my clutch side grip began coming loose such that it would spin on the bar. It would not slide off since it has a flange that fits into a slot in the left switch housing. A couple days ago I bought some Gorilla Glue and glued the grip back on but learned a few things in doing so that might be of interest to this audience.

Iso grips have a number of raised pads that protrude through the metal of the grip. These pads provide a number of benefits including alarger diameter in the gripping area, more friction in the grip area, and padding to reduce hand fatigue. My point is related to this last benefit - padding. The padding from these pads arises from two aspects of their design. First, they are rubber and that material naturally has some flexibility. Second, they are hollow. What I mean by this is that each pad is a raised bump with a hollow space underneath it. Imagine an upside down bowl. The pad is the bowl and the empty space inside/under the bowl is the "hollow" space I am talking about. These pads can be pressed down by the fingers and hand into this hollow space increasing their flexibility even further. With this background, I can (finally) get to the point of this post.

When I removed my grip, I saw that the super glue I had used had mostly collected inside of the hollow spaces under the pads. In addition, I learned that super glue dries/cures into a material about as hard as glass. The glue inside these hollow spaces was not really helping to adhere the grip to the bar and was also preventing some of the pads from being compressed into the hollow space which reduced the flexibilty of the pads thus hurting some of the comfort aspect of the grips.

If super glue is used to install these grips, it pretty much has to be squirted into the grip and then the grip slid quickly onto the bar. This makes sense since putting this glue on the bar and spreading it out into a thin even coating on the bar would not work very well because of the very rapid drying/curing of the super glue. In addition, the instructions with the grips say to squirt the entire tube into the grip and slide it on. When doing what makes sense and what the instructions say to do, the bulk of the glue ends up in the hollows under the pads where it doesn't help adhere the grip and harms the flexibility of the pads.

When I had the grip off my bar, I removed the rubber parts from the metal grip and tried to remove the hardened super glue from the hollow areas. This was near impossible. Dried super glue is strong, hard, and adheres tenaciously to the rubber. I crushed a few large chunks with pliers but had to leave most of it in place.

The solution to this is simple. Don't use super glue to adhere the Iso grips. This means that you should not follow the instructions and should not use the glue that comes with the grips. Instead, get some Gorilla glue and smear this on the bar itself. Spread it out fairly evenly and then slide the grip on. Don't use too much of this glue. It foams up and expands as it dries/cures. Using the Gorilla glue will keep the grip pads as flexible as they can be and also gives you plenty of time to position the grip in the desired position since this glue takes about 12-24 hrs to set up unlike the super glue which hardens in about 3 seconds. Other than the $4 for a small bottle of Gorilla glue, this cure time is the only drawback to using the Gorilla glue. Just glue the grips on at night and the bike will be ready to ride the next morning.

I realize this is a long post for such a minor issue but I hope the details help someone out.

G'day,

Vinish