Heat shrink tubing without heat gun?

I got some ridiculously cheap heated grip pads from ebay
They work perfectly but the fitting instructions are in Chinese

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Motorcycle-Heated-Grip-Pads-Motorcycle-Handlebars-_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem3a6040a812QQitemZ250722953234QQptZMotorcyclesQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories

I think they are designed to go over of the grips, as opposed to under them like most pads, which should make them easy to install – and remove.

My problem is I don't have a heat gun for the shrink tubing. Is there any way around that? Apparently hair dryers don't get hot enough…

one of these should do the trick I recon



seriously tho

it looks like heat shrink to me so using a hair drier on the hottest setting should do the trick.
You could always cut a bees nut off the end of the heat shrink and try it out first to be sure it will work.

me personally, I'd have concerns about using heatshrink to hang onto while riding

Hair dryer isn't hot enough. Looks like I'll have to get that flame thrower after all.

What's a bees nut in metric BTW?

I was reading the pommy Superbike mag and they fitted some Oxford heated grips to a Bandit. It was typical freezing winter weather (snow, ice, sub-zero, etc) but they found the grips too hot on the hottest setting and had to turn them down. The cheapies don't look like they're fitted with any sort of control mechanism so I wonder if you'll (a) cook your hands, (b) find they're not hot enough or (c) be just right most of the time. Sounds like the story of Goldilocks and the 3 bears but I know Canberra gets bloody cold in mid winter and here you'd want something hot but not hot enough to melt you. Is there any way you can test them before installing them? Be a bugger if you're forever trying to turn them off, turn them on, turn them off, etc as you were riding just to keep the fingers comfy.

a bees nut is equal to a smidgen

which when you get down to it is equal to SFA

So about 1 or 2 mm should do the trick

Ewok1958 wrote:I was reading the pommy Superbike mag and they fitted some Oxford heated grips to a Bandit. It was typical freezing winter weather (snow, ice, sub-zero, etc) but they found the grips too hot on the hottest setting and had to turn them down. The cheapies don't look like they're fitted with any sort of control mechanism so I wonder if you'll (a) cook your hands, (b) find they're not hot enough or (c) be just right most of the time. Sounds like the story of Goldilocks and the 3 bears but I know Canberra gets bloody cold in mid winter and here you'd want something hot but not hot enough to melt you. Is there any way you can test them before installing them? Be a bugger if you're forever trying to turn them off, turn them on, turn them off, etc as you were riding just to keep the fingers comfy.

I fitted the the cheap ebay heated grips and when I turned them on smoke started to come out of the left grip So I chucked them in the bin and bought a pair of oxford hotgrips.

It's my 3rd set of oxford hotgrips and I can confirm that the highest setting is indeed very hot. The only problem is the outside if your fingers still freeze no matter how hot the grips get. So this time around I fitted oxford sports muffs as well, and together they work a treat. Actually the muffs are probably better than the grips, especially when it rains, but really you need both if you want to have warm hands.

Now that my hands are sorted I need to do something about me bleeding feet...

Tommyboy wrote:
I think they are designed to go over of the grips, as opposed to under them like most pads...

According to the ad... "it's time to feel the heat with these adhesive heated pads which stick under your motorcycle's grips."

Pete wrote:

Tommyboy wrote:
I think they are designed to go over of the grips, as opposed to under them like most pads...

According to the ad... "it's time to feel the heat with these adhesive heated pads which stick under your motorcycle's grips."

Wonder what the heat shrink's for?

Tommyboy wrote:
Wonder what the heat shrink's for?

Just off the top of my head what I reckon you were supposed to do was heat shrink the bar to isolate it electrically (to provide a barrier between the element and the metal), wrap the element around that, and then slide the grip over the top.