March 2, 2009

Bike is on the operating table. The rear wheel and slip-on have been removed (more on the slip-on later). It's time to remove the stock shock.

The triangle and bottom shock mount bolt are removed with out much to do.

I pulled the front tank bolts and rear tank bolts. I propped the tank up and forward to gain access to the top shock mount nut.

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I had a lot of trouble removing the dog bone, so I coaxed the shock out with a punch and a ford wrench (dead blow hammer).

I propped the swingarm up with 2x4 cut offs from building the table to get more access for removing the shock.

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Now that the shock was removed, I separated the clevis and the shock.

I chucked a grinding bit into my drill press to clean up the dog bone ends. I cut both off, figuring someone else may want a freebie spacer for their project.

Milled dog bone ends

I wanted a quick check to make sure my spacing would be about correct, so I placed the M10-1.5x110 hardened bolt & dog bone spacer next to the stock clevis.

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Now to remove the OEM bolt from the clevis. Another Christmas present in action, the 4" Ryobi grinder popped the tack welds without issue. I also ground down the head of the new bolt to gain the clearance needed for the top mount eye.

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March 3, 2009

A buddy's brother runs a garage, so he took my new bolt & clevis and welded them together for me. (I owe :beer: ).

My buddy didn't like the look of the clevis, so he cleaned it up after the weld and painted it with 'hammered silver' primer

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