How To Guide: Raise Forks / Lower Triple

[Auspanglish]

To all those wising to do this alone... NO WORRIES. I've just performed this mod myself, all by my lonesome. It is easier than changing the oil filter.

For those of you who are either:

- LAZY

- FRIENDLESS (...I mean doing it alone :S)

- IN A HURRY

There are a couple of shortcuts over the original write-up. I did loosen my handlebars but DID NOT REMOVE THEM (There's a metal clip or ring towards the fork cap which obliges one to prise the handlebar coupling apart, which can easily result in scratching or deforming and besides, there's no need to remove them altogether, unless you're going to be installing helibars and such... because the forks just need to slide up through the two triple trees and the handlebars. So I just loosened off the bolts.

I DID NOT REMOVE THE WHEEL. I figure it's easier to keep everything in alignment if you do not remove the wheel. Plus it serves as a great point of support when using the car-jack-under-the-headers method.

I used a car jack (not the scissor type Dutchy used but a mini-hydraulic one, like the ones car mechanics use but smaller in size), below the headers. THERE IS VERY LITTLE RISK OF YOU BREAKING SOMETHING, unless you actually rest the keel of the fairings on the jack while the headers are still hot, as in this case you will melt the fairing where those little plastic clips go in on the underbelly and you will curse yourself. I have used this method to change umpteenth front tyres.

Now I jacked the front up just a smidgin, the front wheel didn't leave the ground altogether. I loosened off the six bolts, 2x handlebars 12mm @ 12 NM (I call them handlebars because I am lead to believe that Helibars is a brand of bar-risers), 2x lower tree 14mm @ 36 NM (fairly high torque ), 2x upper trees @ 17 NM (allen head bolt, same size as the large fairing bolts).

Then I let the hydraulic jack lower roughly the distance I wanted to lower the front. Some 8 mm. My calipers have the feelers for inner and outer diameters and the handlebars did not get in the way at all. The fork tubes were quite unwilling to slide up in the trees on their own. So I had to coax them. But so the bike wouldn't drop onto the jack (with the headers taking the brunt, even though I wasn't overly concerned about an 8 mm drop), firstly I jacked the front up and had the tubes slide down in the trees to see if that would overcome the friction of 10 years of never having been touched (I'm pretty sure the previous owner(s) never touched this part of the bike). That worked, so I proceeded to lower the jack and got things moving easier. It did need a little egging on. My fuel tank was half empty, perhaps if it were full the front would have dropped by itself.

I wasn't on perfectly level ground (I used a spirit level on several points of the bike, so I know it wasn't perfect). I found that one side was perfect and the other side wasn't, but with the friction between the trees and the fork tubes, I tightened up the upper tree bolt on the one that was spot on, and coaxed the other one to where it needed to be and tightened off the upper bolt on that one too.

Then all I had to do was measure everything again to be sure and tighten up the remaining bolts.

So, summarizing:

1. Jack under headers.

2. Lossen off the 6 bolts.

3. Lower the jack the desired amount.

4. Measure them.

5 Tighten up all 6 bolts.

6. Measure them again.

7.Take it for a ride, starting off slow and based on handling, increase your speeds. At about 60 km7h, remove your hands from the bars, but keep tem ready to grab again, in case you get wobbles... Mine was more solid than ever, which I would put down to more weight distributed forwards.

8 Have a beer, it was a tough job and you desereve it!!!

Actually, my 5th gen is now on rails. After having set sag and performing this mod, she is now so much more stable, and corners like a dream. I had regularly complained about an unusual instability in the past, and now I know what it was... too much trail!!! I notice that now all I have to do is look where I want to go and she's there. Before I had to really guide her, really MAKE her take the corner. She would always take the corners, but now she does so with ease and aplomb!!!

DO THIS MOD!!!

Edited March 28, 2008 by Auspañol

[spotthedogg]

Quick question, on my sixth gen how much stanchion should be exposed above the handlebar clamp? I have mine at 19mm right now, after re-installing the fork legs. Should have measured/marked before removal :blush:

[spotthedogg]

I guess the easy thing to do is measure from the bottom of the clip on +49mm. I just thought it might be awkward with it on.