This video gives a good overview of the Lowbrow Customs Blade Levers (available in black or chrome for 1996 & later Harley-Davidsons) discussing fitment, feel and the inspiration behind these motorcycle control levers. These levers fit many years and models of Harley-Davidson motorcycles, including Sportsters, Dyna, and many others. They install quickly and easily, take a look at the video product review and install videos below for all the information you need!
To see how to swap out the stock levers on your Harley-Davidson Sportster, Softail, Dyna or Touring model motorcycle check out the How-To video below, which shows the process step-by-step on a custom Sportster.
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You can read a full transcription of this video below:
Hey guys. Todd from Lowbrow Customs here. Today we’re going to have a little tech tip on how to install our new blade levers on this Harley-Davidson Sportster. Blade Levers also fit Dyna, Softail and Touring models as well as Sportsters.
All right, let’s go ahead and get started. Lowbrow designed these really cool Blade Levers for modern motorcycles. What’s really cool about them is they do not have the ball end on there, so they’re more reminiscent of some of the earlier levers that would have been found on a Knucklehead, Shovelhead type of motorcycle. Not very difficult to install. They are also available in black and aluminum. We’ll go ahead and do the clutch side first.
Very minimal tools required for this job. I have a half-inch wrench, a nine sixteenth wrench and a pair of small snap ring pliers. Okay, first thing you want to do is lube up your clutch boot. A lot of times these get dry. This will help it slide over the cable because we have to get to the adjuster. So a nice liberal amount of lubrication down in there. Then you can pull it up to reveal. Your clutch adjustment is right here. That’s where we’re going to use our two wrenches. Okay, we’ll go ahead and loosen the lock nut. This is lock nut. We’re going to put our half-inch on this one here and we’re going to put this one on here. If it’s real tight like this one, you can use the wrenches or leverage like so. We’ll turn that up, all the way.
We’ll turn this adjuster till there’s no threads showing. It's going to give this the most available amount of slack on the cable. So it looks like that. The next thing we need to do, is there’s a very small snap ring underneath this pin, the pivot pin on here. You’re just going to use these little tiny nibs on the end of this tool to open this up a little bit, to pop it off of here. Sometimes it’s easier if you just use one of the nibs to spin it around, so you can get a better vantage point at it. You don’t want to open it up so far that it bends the heck out of it because we do want to reuse this. Here we go. There’s your snap ring.
Okay, the pin just slides up and out of there once your clip is removed. There's your pin. Then you’re just going to pull the cable this way, so it can come out of the groove there. Take your lever off. Then you want to take this little plastic barrel off of the loop that is on the clutch cable like so.
Pretty simple stuff there. You’re going to be reusing this barrel. It’s a good idea to make sure it’s still nice and round, it doesn’t have a groove in it from the end of the cable. This should also be a very good opportunity to lube your clutch cable. Notice how our lever does come with a little plastic sleeve on there. Basically, that’s on there so that your lever is snug fit in the housing and the perch, so it doesn’t have this type of action here, where it’s wobbling in there because when you put it in there, that puts tension on it.
All right, we’ll go ahead and put the new lever on to the end of the cable here. I'm just going to put that loop in there. Your plastic barrel will go back in through the new lever and through the loop. We also have these plastic, kind of takes up a little space in there. Make sure that’s all looking like that when you’re done putting your cable on. Okay, we are ready to put the lever on to the perch. The same way we took it off, we’re going to come from this end and slide it in like so, all the way in, cable through the slot into the end. We’re ready to put the pin back in.
Okay, simply insert the pin. Sometimes you've got to wiggle that around a little bit to get it to slide in there. I like to put my snap ring on my pliers first. Our little nibs hold it on there. Let’s go ahead and get that on there. There’s a little groove on the end of the pin. It’s a good idea, after you put it on, to push up and down on it to make sure it’s engaged in that groove on there. If you push up on this and the pin pops up, that means the clip is not on there correctly.
Okay, now we’re ready to go ahead and readjust clutch cable. I’m just going to go ahead and turn this down. One of the things I like to do when doing this is, if you put your lever in that position, when you’re down there turning it, you can watch it go like that. It’ll come back like so. Watch. See it moving?
Now, once you get to there, what you want to do is, you have to have some free play in your clutch. The easy way to check that, you’re just going to depress your lever like you’re actuating the clutch, and when you release it, you want to pull on the cable. See that gap right there? That’s our free play.
Okay. Basically, now the clutch is adjusted. Go ahead and turn the lock nut back down on our adjuster. Our two wrenches. Snug that lock nut up. It doesn’t have to be crazy tight. It just has to be tight enough, so that it doesn’t loosen. Don’t forget to slide your boot back over your adjuster. When I was working at the shop, I had a tuba stuff I got from Napa Auto Parts called Sil-Glyde, silicon-based lubricant. It works real well on these. You just slather that all up and slide your boot over. Since I don’t have any here at the shop, we’re just going to go ahead and slide it over. The other thing that it does is, it lubricates the rubber boot, it keeps moisture out of the adjuster, and it helps this boot go over that adjuster because you don’t want it to turn inside out because it is very difficult to get that boot turn on right side. Voila.
Okay. Not so hard. Pretty easy. So it’s all done. I’ll go ahead and move to the other side and do the brake lever. Okay, same program as the other side, we’re going to go ahead and take the clip off the pin.
That one came off pretty easy. Okay, remove your pin, followed by your lever. One thing worth noting on this side, your brake light switches are right here. So when you go back together, you’re going to want to -- We’ll go ahead and put the new lever on. You’re going to want to start it in there and make sure that this nib that contacts that brake is way forward of that before you bring this back and in. Get that lined up and then go ahead and drop our pin in. Check the operation before we put our clip on. Everything seems good. It might not hurt to double-check our brake light switch. Everything is good to go there. All we have left to do is put our clip on.
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