Reply to thread

I fought a nice clean war with a set of those pipes and the pipes won. So then I assumed I was doing it wrong and tried, tried, and tried and the pipes won. The bottom one was pushing on the fiberglass side cover and the top on only had a tiny clearance.  So, totally pissed off, I did something very unlike me: Tightened the roses very tight. Two feet on the bike, two hands on the bottom pipe, PULL! Ok, now I had a small gap.  PULL HARDER, now I had a decent gap but I thought it too small.  PULL REAL HARD - happy. Ok, same drill on the top pipe until it matched.

Like you I had a nice set that fit perfectly, but that set was cracked at the flange that goes into the head. The set I made work was new and came with the bike along with a new side cover because the one on the bike was badly burned.

I hate gorillas working on bikes, but that day I went full gorilla!