I will have some 13" 444 coming on friday. This is a trivial question, but has anyone installed it without putting the bike on a jack? The Service Manual recommends removing and installing one at a time. Is it easy to do that way?

Thanks, my mechanic skills are novice at best.

 

One at a time would be the way to go for sure if it's stock length but it might be tough for you to put one 13" shock on with a 12 on the other side...

If you're not going to use a jack you're going to have a hard time. The shocks are holding the rear of bike up, you need something to take the weight of the bike to get them off easily. Same goes for getting them on again, you're going to want the bike lifted enough that the space between the bolts is the same as the length of the shock so they'll slip on easily

 

You can manage with a car jack and a 2x4 if you're careful. Leave it on the kickstand and jack the rear up enough to reach the extra 1". Once you get one of the shocks on you can even downjack if you want. Although, I bought the sears motorcycle jack and have used it for many different things.

 

If stock length you can have a buddy help horse the bike around while you line things up (lifting rear end), doing one at a time. I had to do it in a parking lot with a buddy once when my shock bolt sheered off.

As mentioned above if not stock length you're going to have issues. Going taller you'll need to drop both shocks so the swing arm can widen for your new shock mount length.

 

^^^ this.

 

JC motors rocks. I just got off the phone and had my order changed from 13'' to 12''. And the price was alot less than what I was quoted from shops in my area.

 

Install should be cake then. As the others said, take one shock off, install bottom of new shock then you might have to lift fender strut slightly to get top holes to line up.

 

use a quick-grip style bar clamp to compress the shock

 

swapped, 12.5 to 10.5, 10.5 to 12.5, did 12.5 to 13, no problems by myself, no jack

be sure to do the right side shock first, some will disagree with me but i swear it makes it easier when on the kick stand. one shock at a time

 

I did just that last saturday. I removed old and installed new one side at a time without a jack. I did have to lift the backend up about an inch or so to line up the bottom screw. I loosely fit the top bolt before working on the bottom.

It's not hard at all. Took me about 30min.