How to lower your Rocket (Front Fork mod)

tribal

Moto Hobo Gypsy Vagabond
Joined
Apr 15, 2006
Messages
889
Location
North America - presently touring the USA
Ride
2005 Rocket III & 2015 Rocket III Roadster
This write up is dedicated to those who did this mod before me - BusaJack, Sully, RiderRocketMan, Step1 & others.

The purposes of lowering a bike are many but by lowering the front end you should increase cornering agility. Do this mod at your own risk though
and you should never make drastic changes and try to push the limits - go slow and make incremental adjustments...

Steps to lower your rocket:

1. Research, select & install your shorter rear shocks (or not). See other posts for replacing rear shocks. Mine were 1/2" lower than stock for my
shorter inseam.

2. Place lift under engine and lift the bike just enough to take the pressure off of the
front forks - do not raise it too far (forks should still be partially compressed).

3. If you have a wind screen fixing kit that attaches to the forks you will need to loosen the bolts to allow the forks to raise up. Here is an example - loosen
bolts A and B on the left and right side or remove them altogether if you wish until you get the forks set where you want them.



4. Loosen the 6 fork pinch bolts depicted as C, D, and E in this photo (repeat for left & right side). Depending on the amount of pressure the forks should rise up within the triple tree.




5. Slowly lower the bike until the forks (shown as item F) reach the desired
distance to be lowered (G in photo). You should set one side, snug it down, adjust the other, and then tighten all 6 bolts to spec.




6. Tighten up wind screen fixing kit if that applies to your situation.

Take a test drive and repeat steps 2-6 until the optimal lowering height is reached.

This is another view with 3/8" lowered front forks (will go more):



Others have gone down to 1.5" or more.

Again, use caution when making modifications that impact the handling characteristics of your ride.
 
Just another word of caution, watch that you don't raise the forks high enough to hit either the radiator or the bottom of your lower triple tree with your fender. This was a major concern on my last bike (Yamaha Roadstar Warrior) when lowering the front this way. I don't know which it may impact first on the Rocket, but go to far, wheelie and when you come down there's a front fender in need of some minor bodywork and paint or worse.

Joe
 
Great write up .

It alters the characteristics of the bike a lot , one of the cheapest :lol: and best mods
 
Good work-if I remeber correctly, Jethro did this and he sad it also was a great mod...Owl, can we make this a sticky...?
 
Can the forks be lowered on the R3T?

Yes it can. just need to remove handle bars, upper tripple tree and shroud over forks. Otherwise same except only 4 pinch bolts.
 
Can you send the pics for this post to trueblue3771@hotmail.com . Great post thanks for the know how.

..welcome aboard DVH..I don't about the tourer, but on my standard I just loosened the pinch bolt and pushed the forks up through the triple trees about 1/4"..that's all they would go on mine..I did this because I have 11&1/2" shocks instead of the stock 12s" or is it 12&1/2" and I was trying to keep it relatively level..
 
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