sportster shocks/kz1000e

Just bought a set of sportster shocks. I paid a bit of a premium 'cause these had black springs and I wanted 'em. Length is ~13.25" (about .25 inches on the short side) but that shouldn't be too big of an issue, especially if they're stiffer, which I expect them to be. The bushings on the harley shocks have an ID about 13.65mm, whereas the mounting posts on the KZ are 14mm. I thought about swapping bushings, but the OD of the KZ bushings is too big to fit in the HD shocks. Plus, the old bushings are beat. Now I plan on drilling out the HD bushings to ~14mm. The OD of the metal part of the bushing is about 16.5mm, so there should be plenty of material there. The last concern is that the mounts on the HD shocks are about 3/16" wider that those on the KZ shocks. I also don't think this will cause much of a problem since there are enough threads on the mounting posts to make it work.

Just checking to see it all this sounds reasonable to the group, or at least to anyone who has made this swap. It's not going to be a big deal, but from what I had read on the forum about it, I was expecting it to be a bit more straighforward.

That's all I did (drilled out the Sportster bushings). Although I actually used a grinder to take some depth out of the bushings. I made them mostly flush with the eyes.

When you buy Progressive Suspension shocks, they list them by application but the eyes are generic. A "bushing kit" is supplied to make most any shock work on most any application. They do sell the bushing kit and these come in handy when mounting odd shocks to a bike... I have bought several of these kits over the years just for this purpose.

I'd think the sportster shocks would be much lighter duty than the KZ1000E shocks myself.
KZ1000E- Close to 700lbs made in Japan
Sportster- 400-500lbs made in China??? At least Harley shocks were all Chinese last I heard. Are these Harley shocks any good? Big surprise to me if they were.

del

dude- the 883 Sporster is 574 pounds DRY- more like 630 without fuel!

An old KZ1000 wieghed 518 pounds, dry- closer to the Sportster's dry wieght!

Harley's wieght lots and lots dude!:laugh:

An "E" will go around 600-610lbs. with all fluids in it. That is for a stock non-fairing, saddlebag model, it will weight more if it is dressed.

When you mount the shocks put the right side one on first and tighten the bottom mount first. Note the amount of gap between the shock mount and the frame on the top stud mount. Don't just tighten it down or you have jacked the shock into an angle and either it will bind enough to notice in washboard roads or it will cause the shaft seal to start to sideload and leak. You'll have to come up with a spacer to shim up the difference.

Good time to check the swingarm bearings for play or "notches" in their movement, too.

CruisingRam wrote:

dude- the 883 Sporster is 574 pounds DRY- more like 630 without fuel!

An old KZ1000 wieghed 518 pounds, dry- closer to the Sportster's dry wieght!

Harley's wieght lots and lots dude!:laugh:

I'll check out some magazines and get the stats one of these days. All I know is I have a KZ1000E and it's one brute of a bike to put it mildly. If a 883 Sportster weighs more than it, I'll be more than mildly surprized.
Update: I searched online and the Harley does weigh like 550 dry. Call me surprized. I think a KZ1000E will still beat it out in the weight department, but not near the margin I thought. The shocks should work out pretty good actually.

Post edited by: RonKZ650, at: 2007/10/04 22:50

A new sportster will go about 580-590 ready to go, which i would think could make the shocks good for mabey up to a 650. if you are going to put them on a 1000 i would look for a set of Dyna shocks, Sport if you can find them. the main reason i think the sportster one come up so often is the shorter people putting on the "low" ones. i have a set on one of the 400's and they work well enough. i would not pay more than 20 dollars for a set though. if they want more, just wait another set will come along.

I have a set of Sportster Hugger shocks on my KZ1000P, and they work great.

RonKZ650 wrote:

CruisingRam wrote:

dude- the 883 Sporster is 574 pounds DRY- more like 630 without fuel!

An old KZ1000 wieghed 518 pounds, dry- closer to the Sportster's dry wieght!

Harley's wieght lots and lots dude!:laugh:

I'll check out some magazines and get the stats one of these days. All I know is I have a KZ1000E and it's one brute of a bike to put it mildly. If a 883 Sportster weighs more than it, I'll be more than mildly surprized.
Update: I searched online and the Harley does weigh like 550 dry. Call me surprized. I think a KZ1000E will still beat it out in the weight department, but not near the margin I thought. The shocks should work out pretty good actually.<br><br>Post edited by: RonKZ650, at: 2007/10/04 22:50

I pulled those specs right off www.bikez.com

H-D's lumps are very, very heavy compared to japanese models- even older ones.

H-Ds are pigs man!