Shortening Forks

I am in the process of bobbing by 79' 650 and I would like to avoid raking the front end, but the fact is that my forks are just too long to make the bike level after it's hardtailed. What is the feasibility of actually shortening the forks a couple inches? Does this have to be done professionally or can the average grease monkey do it?

Slide the forks up in the tripple trees.
Dont know if this will keep the look that you want, but is is easy.
I think even a monkey could do it:P

Like he said, slide 'em up through the triple clamps. I will be doing the same on mine - I jacked the back end up a bit to have the same effect as deraking it, now I'm going to shorten up the forks a bit and drop the backend down to stock to lower the CG but retain the quicker handling.

If I slide the forks into the trees, I cant fit my drag bars in the clamps. Can I cut any length from the top of the fork, or is there any other way without loseing where the bars go?

Thanks, Rob

I can see just raising my forks if it only had to move up a 1/2 inch or so, but they are probably going to have to go up 3 inches or more. That is just way too much sticking out the top. I want to know if it is possible to have them physically shortened?

forking by frank does that kind of work.;)i think your 2-3" number is gonna be a little much though:S this bike had the tubes slid up about 3/4" in the trees and 10 1/4" shocks on rear.with my 200lbs on it i had about 2 1/2-3" of ground clearance under header.lower rear of bike to where you want it,then raise your tubes in the trees till its level and see what it looks like.the 650 tubes are about 3/4" shorter than 1000 tubes right out of box.

Post edited by: wireman, at: 2006/09/29 23:17

slide it down and get clipons

... look into swapping some regular telescopic forks from different sportbikes. These are usually shorter than the ones you've got. Even the GPz/ZX A forks were shorter IIRC.

theres a way to put in a spacer to lower the forks, i think its usually pvc pipe that people use, not to be confused with putting a spacer on top of the springs to stiffen up the front end. im sure someone with the know how can elaborate on this. I just remember reading it on here some time ago, and cant remember where...

77KZ650 wrote:

theres a way to put in a spacer to lower the forks, i think its usually pvc pipe that people use, not to be confused with putting a spacer on top of the springs to stiffen up the front end. im sure someone with the know how can elaborate on this. I just remember reading it on here some time ago, and cant remember where...

Effects handling significantly though...

caffcruiser wrote:

Effects handling significantly though...

in what way though?

i think you can buy shorter fork tubes? i thought i heard that a while back on the forum.