Bar end mirrors on the cheap by bmeyer6472 Mar 2005

I had a spare day and some scrap metal and being a cheap s.o.b. I decided to make some bar end mirrors using the stock SV mirrors. There are better looking bar ends for sure, but you can't beat the $0 cost! They work great, much better than in the stock position - I can actually see something besides my elbows now.
 

To answer the question of how I made them, my first consideration was to be able to return to the stock setup if my experiment failed, so I removed the stock bar ends and associated hardware (the stuff inside the bar that holds the ends on) and started from scratch. I originally intended to just make new ends and attach them to the stock mounting hardware but the stock rubber mounts were too weak to hold the ends firmly in place once the mirrors were attached. Anyway, I'm lucky enough to have a small lathe and mill, so I basically copied the original bar ends and then made a couple of expanding tapers to fit inside the bar with threaded central holes to screw the bar end attaching screw into. When tightened to hold the bar ends on, this expands and firmly hold the ends on.

Anyway, after the bar ends were made from 12L14 cold roll steel, I machined a threaded hole in each of them to attach the stalks, with a machined flat around the hole for the jam nut to bear on. I then made the stalks from some 1/2" 6061 aluminum round bar and turned the ends down and threaded them to use the stock SV mirrors and jam nuts. If anyone is interested, the threads are 10mm 1.25 pitch. I took a guess as to the best length for the stalks, and it turned out OK. They could possibly be a smidgen longer for clearance with heavy gloves but I think they will work well for me.

I am really happy with the result - I think it looks way better than the stock setup, even if it isn't the coolest bar end mirror design on the planet and the increase in the rear field of view is fabulous. They don't vibrate either!

Here's my engineering drawings :-) for anyone that wants to have a go themselves - I apologize for my poor drawing skills - I hope you are able to decipher it. Also, these dimensions and so forth are not written in stone, they just worked for the stuff I had on hand. I hope you can at least get an idea of how I did mine, from the photos and drawing. Not shown in the drawing is a flat I had to grind on the outer expansion piece to clear a raised seam on the inside of the bars.

I nearly forgot to mention..... I had to grind a small flat on the cylindrical surface of the outer expander piece to clear a raised internal seam in the bars on my bike - I assume most bars would be the same. Some of this stuff should be obvious, but I thought I should mention it anyway.

UPDATE:
I should mention that I had to change the attachment screw for the bar ends from a flat head screw, as shown in the drawings, to a socket head cap screw. I found that after a while the flat head screws would loosen because I was not able to get them tight enough. What I did to solve the problem was to install grade 8 socket head cap screws, which required me to mill a counter bore in the bar ends deep enough to hide the head of the new cap screws. After tightening the new bolts with a wrench, I have put several thousand miles on the bike and have not had any further problem with loosening bar ends.

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