Yamaha Ténéré 700 - Hepco & Becker Handlebar Guards - Parts and upgrades reviews

Posted February 10, 20214 yr

I installed the Hepco & Becker (H&B) Handlebar Guards, and of course, had to modify the fit a little bit, because I did not fancy H&B's fastening solution.

The included bolts to fasten the guards to the handlebar mount are too soft and cannot be torqued to the specified 21 ft-lbs/ 28 Nm, so I purchased flat head stainless steel bolts from Bolt Depot after stripping the inserted hex hole on several of the four included fasteners. I had to use an electric drill to remove the bolts... And I was very careful, and used the correct size Allen bit!

Luckily the Bolt Depot order arrived very fast, with low shipping cost, and I have never seen better quality control when ordering bolts! I have removed/fastened the new stainless bolts a slew of times, no problem what-so-ever fastening the bolts to the correct torque specs! (No, I am not affiliated with Bolt Depot, but appreciate quality when I see it! 🙂 )

I use a Rally Raid top clamp, so the bolts I ordered are a little longer - 8 mm x 1. 25 mm x 45 mm.

I also changed the H&B included zinc coated bar end bolts to stainless steel since the cost was only one dollar and I already had to pay for shipping - 8 mm x 1.25 mm x 35 mm Allen head bolts.

I used a countersink drill bit and made a cleaner installation than H&B had designed after I tried a couple of solutions.

In picture #1, the lower right hand corner is H&B, a little crude..., in the upper left corner is my first take on fasteners. The flanged bolt "talks" to the bolts on the top of the suspension forks, because they are the same type. The recessed hole in the upper right corner and lower left hand corner, was my final take, also as seen in picture #2.

I ended up lightly modifying the Rally Raid bracket a little later in order to fasten a cell phone holder to it, and had to modify the H&B brackets by shaving 2 mm off the width. 🙂 Both modifications were actually pretty fun and satisfying!