In everywhere I've read, other shock manufacturers, they say loctite red on the swingarm bolts.. Which would explain why it takes a mallet and preferrably a helper to hold the bike to break 'em loose.

 

I used the Harley shocks on my 02 Night Train and put the bolt kit in
the shocks on my friends bike. This time I used the Burnout Cycles
kit on my 05 Springer Classic and I like it, gives you a choice of
how low you want the bike and was as easy to install as the shocks
I did on my old NT. I will say this, at the highest setting it will lower
your bike a bit more than the other two ways.
Very happy, great product/idea, easy install and how low do you
want to go...with this kit I think you could set the fender on the tire

 

Cool. I've been debating between higher-end shocks verses just this lowering kit.
What would you say about the ride with the lowering kit on your shocks? assuming they're OEM shocks.
Did you do any adjustment to the preload?

 

No preload adj. yet, today was the first time I got to ride sense I put them on
Sunday, it has bee raining. I will say the ride is stiffer but not bad, handles
really well like it is so I think I will leave it alone for a while and see how it
does.

 

I didn't adjust my shocks either, I don't even know what they are set at. With only 3000 miles on my bike, I couldn't see buying new ones. Handles well, as good as before I believe. I have not scraped on any turns yet.

The 883 hugger or "low" is just a lowered sportster and is suppose to be a very good handleing bike, so I can't see why the softail wouldn't handle well lowered.

 

Torn.. stash away for progressive 422's ($399) or spend the hundred bucks on the burnout kit and ride. hmmm
Sounds like you guys are convinced the extra cash for bumping up into gas shocks isn't all that worth it.
One thing's for sure, my 260 lbs will probably need a preload adjustment either way. I'm thinking that's the reason for the sloppy cornering and scrapping (too much butt on the bike with stock preload setting)

 

I dropped the rearend on my 05 FXST last night on a whim. I have been stripping it, taking off anything I can get away with and I wanted it to sit a little lower in the rear. I was reading about "kits" and someone mentioned briefly about just using washers. That's all I needed. Most of the time it took was figuring out how to setup the bike on a jack stand (pix soon) and getting the rear wheel off. Other than that all you do is remove the front mount bolt on the shocks, lift the swing-arm to pull the mount out of the frame bracket, and then install as many 7/16 washers as you want to lower the bike to your liking. I reinstalled it without the rubber bushing. I used two nuts, one on either side of the frame bracket, and two rubber washers in between steel washers to give me more adjustment room. It is now fully/easily adjustable for the price of a few washers and an hour work. Pix soon.

 

This takes an hour if you have the stuff handy, maybe more if you are making it up as you go along, like I did. This first pic is my bike resting on a jackstand, but in a non-traditional way. It works perfectly, like it was made for the job. The front wheel is on the ground.


This pic shows the next step. You loosen or remove the two nuts holding the forward shock mount to the frame bracket. Then you lift the swingarm (after removing the wheel) until the shock mounts drop out of the bracket. There are two bushings that will come out, along with the nuts.




Notice the threaded shaft on the forward end of the shock. At the point where it gets wider, where you put a wrench to hold it while adjusting preload, that is where you make the adjustments by installing washers to space the shock mount further aft than it is in the stock configuration.




You install 7/16 washers onto the shaft on the aft side of the bracket, so that they get in between the aft bushing and that step in the shaft width. This pushes the shock body rearward and lifts the swing-arm, which lowers the rear-end of the bike.

You can experiment with the washers to get the droop you want.

Also, if you want to go lower you can get rid of the bushings on the shock mount and just go with a couple jam nuts/washers in their place. This gives you more room to work with.

Now I am certain there is some really good reason they used rubber bushings in there, but I cant think of what it might be. I have had many bikes including a bunch of race bikes and they all have hard mount points where the shock joins the frame. The shock provides the cushion between the road and the frame and not these cheesy rubber bushings. YMMV.

Install the washers and bolt up the forward shock mount, set the bike down. See if you like the drop. Add/remove washers to taste.

All it really costs is time.

Update: you leave the rear side rubber bushing installed and just do-away-with the forward side bushing to give you enough threaded shaft to play with. You get a rubber washer and a large enough diameter washer to fit over the center shaft of the bushing assembly and bolt them up on the forward side of the frame bracket. that way you essentially still have the rubber bushing assembly and haven't departed TOO much from the OEM configuration.

 

This thing grew a little bit. Had to take the shocks out of the cradle through the rear wheel space. Had to take off the plastic shield in front of the rear wheel. Once you do that the removal is a snap. The problem was the rear attachment bolt for the shock. It was TIGHT. Had to bang it with a small sledge (well, bang the wrench). I am adding a pic of the washers installed on the shock and a couple of the work area for an idea of what is involved in case anyone wants to do this. I would say it is doable for an intermediate wrench guy. If you can take off the rear wheel and get it back on straight then you can do this job.








SO this is how it sits now. It is about an inch lower than stock with three 7/16" washers installed and there is still plenty of room. I went with the OEM bushings on both sides of the forward shock mount because I could. If you can to ditch the bushings, which I think you could, you can go lower with just the washers.

This is a cheap mod and it looks/feels much better.

Havent test ridden yet because as soon as I rolled it out of the driveway to wipe it off it started raining. Crap.

 

Last one: this is before and after. The angle is not precise, but if you compare the rear fender to the side seam on the rear tire you can see approximately where it sat. I think it is perfect now. I could probably do this job again in about an hour now that I know how to do it.
before

after