The best way to ensure that your grips will not spin on you is to glue & safety wire them in place. You also don’t need fancy safety wire pliers, you can use linesman pliers, they’ll work just fine. The KX250 I recently purchased needed new grips, so I thought I would share with you on how I typically install grips on a MX bike.

Parts

• Your choice of grips
• Grip glue (I used Scotts for this demo)
• Tusk safety wire
• Brake cleaner

Tools

• Linesman pliers
• Diagonal cutters
• Utility knife
• Compressor blowgun (optional)

How-To Procedure

1. First, remove the old grip by cutting it off with a utility knife or blowing it off with your compressor. See my post on removing grips the easy way.
2. Scrape off any old glue and clean the area with brake cleaner.
3. Apply some grip glue to inside of grip. If you apply to handlebar it will smear glue into kill switch or throttle assembly.
4. Slide grip on and align orientation if needed (some grips have an arrow that point forward).
5. Cut a piece of safety wire about 10” long.
6. Wind the piece of safety wire around the grip twice, ensuring the wire falls in the wire groove of grip. Start a twist or two by hand. You’ll want the twist to end up in an area that won’t dig into your palm, like 7 or 5 o’clock viewed from bar end.
7. Grab wire twist with linesman pliers and give it a tug to pull it tight against grip. Double check wire is still in grove.Start twisting. You may want to tug slightly after every few twists. Don’t twist too much and cut through grip. Wire should recess into grip and depending on grip may be flush with surface.
8. After achieving desired tension, snip the twisted wire with diagonal cuttters leaving about 3 turns exposed.
9. Bend the exposed wire over onto grip with pliers. Dig the wire into the grip with pliers so no sharp edges will cut your hand or gloves.
10. I like to safety wire the grip in 3 locations even if grips have 2 wire grooves. The loop I add about ¼” from bar end really help if the grip starts to tear and water enters.

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