Gen 1 handlebars that don't collapse - SOLUTION!

[seggin_dan]

Thought I'd share a little solution I discovered.

So I have an i180. My point, it's old.

Over the years of raising and lowering the handlebars, the cables inside seem to have taken a beating. Twisting, bending, crimping and the like. For me, I take my Seg everywhere, meaning I have to collapse the bars, pick her up and shove her in the back of my Honda Element (PERFECT FOR SEGS, BTW). My biggest frustration is the bars don't collapse all of the way—I'd say halfway. All of this is due to the limp wires inside.

After removing the CS and doing some head scratching, I realized I needed a protective sleeve to shield and reposition the cables/connections. I read on Seg Chat somewhere about someone making a tool with PVC to remove the nut in the CSB. Genius!

With that in mind, I made a sleeve around 6-7" in length using 1" thin-wall PVC. It firmly grips the plastic nut in the CSB keeping the cables/connections in the middle of the CS, where they belong, not along the edge. Sure enough, now the handlebars collapse, COMPLETELY!

Thought I'd share...
dan

[LibertySegway]

I have this trouble with one of my Segs since it came back from a routine check-up. It was quite frustrating as Ben (12) likes to ride with his handlebars as low as they can go. I hope this is the anwer to getting those wires to cooperate without squishing and breaking them. Thanks! :)

[polo_pro]

Yeah, I came up with that tool a couple years ago. I've used it many times to extract the guts of a CSB from its shell. Just be warned that i167's can have a rubber plug instead of a nut. This is more the case for Hypertronic connectors than Elcon connectors, but I'm not sure if this is always the case.

libertysegway, this is the tool I forgot on our trip to Germany. Oddly enough, we had plenty of PVC pipe at the time. So if I had the patience (or could have borrowed some power tools from Boris), I could have spent an hour or two making another one of these. The tough part about making the tool is getting the spacing of the teeth to correctly match the notches in the nut. It takes literally dozens of iterations...craftsmenship! And if you have one slip with a power tool, the notch comes off and you get to cut an inch off the PVC pipe cleanly and start over.

BTW, some dealers swear by the procedure of getting a screwdriver, positioning it at as much an angle as you can get in the throat of a CSB's casing and whacking it with a hammer! I've never heard of anyone breaking the nut (since it's plastic), but it sure seems like a possibility. I just never had the guts to do this procedure to extract the guts of a CSB!

ps - Has anyone out there messed with desoldering the wires from the CSB connector to the guts of the CSB? I'm interested in swapping out a set of Hypertronics connectors for a spare set of Elcon connectors that I scavanged. This soldering job is going to take a fine touch from what I can see. It makes me wish I had the surgeon's control like Marty.

[ndswan]

I have purchased several sets of male and female 5 wire din connectors. It is a pain to solder in, but they seem to work well and saves the CSB. They are about $.75 @ from the electronic catalogs.

Nick