Raising a bike that was lowered by PO

[T-Dog]

This may seem sort of"well,d-uh"to some of you but here goes:The fork tubes on my 750T were almost touching the handlebars,and the bike sat a little too vertically on the sidestand.So I dropped the fork tubes so the tops of them are flush even with the top triple clamp.I remembered the PO was a little lady about 5'5" tops, so I thought I'd measure the rear shocks and compare to my neighbor's GS650GL parts bike.My shocks are about 1 1/4 " shorter.I'm thinking they were shortened.I'm welcome to switch them out with the 650s shocks for no charge.Will any of this affect rake/trail,handling etc?My public profile has pics before I did anything to it I think it looks lower than stock.Your thoughts on this?Thanks

[tkent02]

The way it is now probably handles like crap. Mine feels terrible with the rear springs set too low, yours are way lower.
Put the long ones on and try it as it was originally intended.
Or better yet get a real suspension, modern shocks, progressive springs, etc.

[T-Dog]

Yeah I haven't actually ridden it yet,I trucked it here and got to work on it.I'll put on the longer shocks,it makes sense to me to do so and they're free.I'll be putting in new fork seals drain old oil and put in new before it even turns a wheel.For suspension up grades should I go with fork springs and after market shocks to start and can you recommend any,thanks that would likely be a winter project as I'm on a budget and the main objective at this time is to get it running(carb rebuild underway)

[SqDancerLynn1]

those shocks will not interchange ! most GS use about a 12" shock. That 1.5" will make big difference

[trippivot]

progressive front springs and progressive shocks are hi quality parts.

the rear shocks are available in 13.25" 12" or 11.5"

rear height effects the trail value of the front geometry.
more trail(lower rear end) the bike wants to go straight or resist turning.


lowering the trees on the tubes makes the trail value smaller. and vice-versa

reversing the forks if they were internally lowered is a cinch too.