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Hi all- I have a 2005 Super Glide with 20000 miles on the clock that was lowered by the previous owner. The front is especially bad because it has very little travel and tends to dive a lot during braking. So much so that there is a small crease in the fender from the suspension bottoming out and contacting the fender.
I pulled the cap off the forks yesterday and measured the big spring which was 21.5 inches long. Also the oil inside the tube was pretty dirty and stank to high Heaven.
My questions are-
1) What is the length of the stock fork spring?
2) Am I over simplifying it by thinking I can just get a stock length spring and replace the shorter spring or would I need to disassemble and change out other components in the forks to bring it back to stock height?
3) Could I jack the front of the bike up and pull the drain plugs then compress the front end to get the old fork oil out?
On a side note I do have a set of 13 inch air shocks from my Road King that I plan to put on the rear to get it back to stock height and hopefully improve the ride.
1 - I don't have a frickin clue. My 07 has 49 mm tubes.
2 - YES. The lowering kit are shorter springs and a spring spacer. The slider has the valving that ya don't need to mess with.
3 - Open the drain plugs on the slider to drain the fork oil. Pump the forks up & down to expel all of the oil. CAUTION - pumping them will make it squirt out quickly! With bike on a lift, remove tube caps (1 at a time) and remove shorty spring/spacer and replace with OEM spring/spacer.
Bonus 4 - You can tune your forks to reduce nose dive with PVC pipe the same diameter as the fork spring.. Too much nose dive for ya? Cut a new spacer 1/2" longer and insert. Test Ride.
Ya'll should be rocking down the road with the air shocks and Lowering kit gone.
Last edited by TexasScooterTrash; May 15, 2021 at 08:27 AM.
1 - I don't have a frickin clue. My 07 has 49 mm tubes.
2 - YES. The lowering kit are shorter springs and a spring spacer. The slider has the valving that ya don't need to mess with.
3 - Open the drain plugs on the slider to drain the fork oil. Pump the forks up & down to expel all of the oil. CAUTION - pumping them will make it squirt out quickly! With bike on a lift, remove tube caps (1 at a time) and remove shorty spring/spacer and replace with OEM spring/spacer.
Bonus 4 - You can tune your forks to reduce nose dive with PVC pipe the same diameter as the fork spring.. Too much nose dive for ya? Cut a new spacer 1/2" longer and insert. Test Ride.
Ya'll should be rocking down the road with the air shocks and Lowering kit gone.
What he said!
What length is the spring spacer you have? You can probably just make a longer new one and use the springs you have.
And get some after market fork oil, 10 wt or 15 wt.
1. Not sure what the stock length spring is but Harley used to so the longest softest rate they could with a mile of preload. Not really good for handling or anything for that matter. Gives you that fun soft, springy, turning in mud feeling.
2. You don't necessarily need the stock spring. You do need some info though because the shorter spring might actually be better for you. I would mostly be concerned with what the spring rates are. You can make up the difference in length with spacers. It really depends on what was done to the internals of the fork. Could be as simple as a shorter spacer and or spring or they could have done something to the internals to limit how far the fork can slide such as a spacer on the damper rod or longer top out spring on it. I've seen some crazy stuff done to forks as they came through our shop.
3. You could go that route. At 20000 miles you should really pull them all apart and make sure all the parts are still in good shape. They all could be 100% fine or some might need replacing. I would be concerned about the bushings at that point. The coating wears out over time. The parts at the very least get a complete cleaning. Some oils don't mix well together. One thing we would do with damper rod forks is put in heavier weight oil. It's more of a band aid then a cure all but it does help with the springy feeling a bit since the heavier weight oil flows a bit slower through the holes in the damper rod.
I wouldn't just add longer spacers to stiffen it up. It might give you the feeling of a stiffer ride but what you're doing is just adding more stored energy to the spring which in turn can over power what the damper rod is doing and give you a bouncy/springy ride. It's something you may never notice until you need the dampening effect to help you control a situation that could end up bad like really hard braking.
2) Am I over simplifying it by thinking I can just get a stock length spring and replace the shorter spring or would I need to disassemble and change out other components in the forks to bring it back to stock height?
It depends which lowering kit the prior owner installed, some lowering kits have you add damper rod springs (aka "top out" springs). If you can't find out which specific lowering kit was used I would err on the side of caution and disassemble the forks to verify what's in there.
Bubba,
I would not use the stock components because the springs are way too soft. If you don't want to disasemble the forks I would buy a spring package from a reputable source and change the fluid. If you're considering takoing apart the forks I had great results with Traxxion's fork kit.
Hi all- I have a 2005 Super Glide with 20000 miles on the clock that was lowered by the previous owner. The front is especially bad because it has very little travel and tends to dive a lot during braking. So much so that there is a small crease in the fender from the suspension bottoming out and contacting the fender.
I pulled the cap off the forks yesterday and measured the big spring which was 21.5 inches long. Also the oil inside the tube was pretty dirty and stank to high Heaven.
My questions are-
1) What is the length of the stock fork spring?
2) Am I over simplifying it by thinking I can just get a stock length spring and replace the shorter spring or would I need to disassemble and change out other components in the forks to bring it back to stock height?
3) Could I jack the front of the bike up and pull the drain plugs then compress the front end to get the old fork oil out?
On a side note I do have a set of 13 inch air shocks from my Road King that I plan to put on the rear to get it back to stock height and hopefully improve the ride.
you can probably get away with just a longer pvc spacer to get ride height where you want it.
you can change oil just by pouring it out the top. You can experiment with different weight oils to change how fast the forks compress and rebound.
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3 questions about fork springs
