I am wanting to lower my 85 FLTC so I am flat footing it better. Do you recommend the lowering blocks or shorter shocks?

 

Lowering blocks will throw the shock angle off a bit. Mine had lowering blocks when I bought it and I noticed a slightly better ride without them.

Shorter shocks will most likely also have shorter suspension travel. So it might bottom out sooner when hitting big bumps. Usually they are a little stiffer to make up for the lack of travel.

 

Google "Harley lowering blocks broken swingarm"

Click on images

Let me know what you think.

 

Thanks, I just found some Bitchin Bagger shocks and am going to investigate those.

 

I googled that too. Dam! I guess the shock location on baggers causes lowering blocks to put added stress on the axle due to increased leverage. Dam.

 

Ghetto rigged lowering anything is never a good idea. Unless you get a proper shocks to lower your bike, it's hap hazard. I've never liked the drop in lowering kits in the front either

 

https://www.hdforums.com/forum/gener...-swingarm.html

 

I wouldn't use lowering blocks, not least because they ain't an engineering solution! I will also argue that unless you are very short legged you don't need to lower a Harley either, because it isn't necessary to flat-foot - something I haven't been able to do for decades!

 

My experience with lowering blocks is with TC's, not EVOs. LA Choppers sell a set that retains the stock shock angle. My approach to having a 1" lower rear on my 2004 RK was to buy 13" Ohlins (for the longer travel/better ride; BTW, Howard didn't much care for this approach...) and install the LA Choppers lowering blocks to get the 1" lower ride. What I thought of as best of both worlds.

I had lowering-blocks for many miles (around 20K) with nary an issue. I did a lot of research and my finding was there were various failures but they were certainly not common to the way I planned to approach it, e.g., leaving the stock angle, etc. I accepted what I felt to be a very small risk in my case. That said I would not buy 'cheap' blocks. I saw them for as little as 30 bucks on eBay. The LA Choppers blocks I bought were very beefy.

There is another downside to this approach. Namely, on a bagger the lowering blocks kick the shocks out a bit (because they bolt to the outside of the swing-arm). In turn you have to space the top of the shocks outboard to keep the shocks from angling inward at the top (creating stiction).

The kit came with spacers...for stock shocks. However I had Ohlins and to clear the damper **** (the blocks interfered with the *****) I had to space the shocks out an additional 1/2".

I wound up buying longer Grade 8 shock bolts (1/2") and using spacers I made. (Understand, I don't necessarily recommend this. This is an account of what I did in my case to obtain good ride/lowered-look).

Now the shocks mounted up at the stock angles without interference...but now I had interference problems with the bags. So the next thing I had to do was space the bags outboard to clear the shocks...which meant I had to make my own spacers for the bags as the ones provided in the kit weren't long enough...

It was all a PITA because I wasn't working with the stock (13") air shocks. In the end, my bags were spaced out further than stock (I didn't have filler strips and it looked fine to me). But there was no interference between shocks, and bags...which interference is pretty common.

I would be leery of lowering blocks that change the angle of the shock. I would not space the shocks out too far, Grade 8 bolts or not. I would not lower the bike such that the distance between the back tire and the inside of the rear fender decreased more than 1" from the stock clearance.

They provide top and bottom spacers for the shock bolts with the LA Choppers block kit, along with longer shock bolts, as I recall. But in my case I had to get further clearance for the Ohlins damper ****. Hence all the rigamarole with even longer bolts, making my own spacers, etc.

If you have stock shocks, and purchase blocks that don't change the stock angle (or at least not significantly), it's a pretty easy task and IMHO (see 'CAVEAT' below) low-risk regarding potential structural failure. The LA choppers kit is supplied with bolts, spacers, etc., to keep everything properly aligned and to space the bags out.

CAVEAT: Any time you start 're-engineering' your bike, as I did in my case, you take on any attendant risk. The scary part is, not being engineers (unless you are), we might not fully appreciate those risks sometimes. There's a certain element of Faith involved in the outcome, i.e., that you won't bust your *** having done something which in the hard light of the maths--which you didn't investigate--was not real smart.

How to avoid a potential bad outcome in these cases...don't do it in the first place. Obviously, I chose to pursue a different path.

Alan

 

Alan, very wise words! Being an engineer there are many things I've done to my bike, but fitting lowering blocks isn't one of them, partly because I see no need to lower it, despite being a short-****.