Lowering the rear end

[raider]

I have an 82 gs550L completely ripped apart in my basement that Im turning into a bobber over the winter and I have all my parts and Im ready to begin rebuilding. I want to lower the rear end quite a bit from stock. I bought some tubing and basically made a temporary rigid frame at the height I want. I dont want to leave the tubing as the rear end fearing that when the bike is complete that it will look like I took the cheap and easy way out of building my bike. I have thought about moving the top bolts for the springs forward on the frame. I have also thought about chopping the actual springs down to make them shorter. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I can do?

[tkent02]

I have an 82 gs550L completely ripped apart in my basement that Im turning into a bobber over the winter and I have all my parts and Im ready to begin rebuilding. I want to lower the rear end quite a bit from stock. I bought some tubing and basically made a temporary rigid frame at the height I want. I dont want to leave the tubing as the rear end fearing that when the bike is complete that it will look like I took the cheap and easy way out of building my bike. I have thought about moving the top bolts for the springs forward on the frame. I have also thought about chopping the actual springs down to make them shorter. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I can do?

You want LOWER than a 550L???
Are you a midget?

[raider]

I believe the preffered term is little people, and no I am not. I just dont want the distance between the rear fender and the tire to be so much.

[jfsebastian]

Hi
Have the same issue with my GS450es.
The advice I have so far received is:
1. Get shorter shocks
2. Move the lower shock point rearwards
3. Buy lowering-blocks or make some yourself
4. Struts if you want rigid
5. Weld some diagonal tubing to the swing-arm making it a budget hard-tail.

No cutting coils for safety reasons.

Good luck with the bobber.

JF

[raider]

what would lowering blocks be?

[bwringer]

http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=motorcycle+shock+lowering+blocks

Lowering blocks basically move the lower mounting point back a couple of inches.

Another option is shorter shocks, although you could run into problems with the tire rubbing the inside of the fender.

[raider]

Heres a thought...Because the bike is already fairly small, what about mounting the rear fender to the swingarm at a closer distance than the stock height by using some rod giving it a lower look, then the fender would move with the swingarm so I wouldnt have to worry about bottoming out? Can anyone forsee any safety problems with that?

[jed.only]

ive got a chopped steel fender that i bought when i wanted to bob out my gs, if you're interested. fits awesome over a stock rear tire. i was goingto weld it a 1/4" above the rear tire so it looked slammed.

[raider]

can you send me a picture of it? and did you end up making a bobber out of your gs? I would like to see what it could look like. I have seen a lot of yamahas but not many suzukis.