Help! No power to accelerate after replacing handle bar

[keithwood87]

I have a 1979 xs1100. Switched out the oem bars to cafe clubman bars. Two things I noticed right away after slight rerouting of wires and cables: 1) The starter button/switch works intermittently and 2) the clutch appears to shift through all gears but I can't get enough power to the rear wheel to move the bike forward. After playing around with the cable some more, the starter button/switch completely went out, I jumped the bike from the starter terminals. The bike starts and runs and appears to shift. The rear wheel spins when on the center stand but there is not enough power to propel the bike forward when the tire is on the ground no matter how much I rev it. I am lost!

[natemoen]

The switches ground through the bars so if they are coated, that is your electrical issue (could be the problem even if they are not coated check ot rhough).

As to the other issue, I would bet it has to do with cable routing. Probably keeping.the clutch slightly engaged.

did the bike run fine before the bar change?

[keithwood87]

Ran perfectly

[keithwood87]

100% correct about the bars. Swapped back to the originals and she started right up. I guess I will have to scrape down to bare metal at the connection points on the new bars. The next step will be to redo my cable routing to see if I can get the clutch to reengage.

[natemoen]

Could also run a separate ground wire.

[keithwood87]

Update: remounted clubmans and scraped the paint by the knurls and underneath the push button start housing. Starts again no problem. Also rerouted the reroute of the throttle cable and lubed it. Bike changes gear again.