I'm over my struts!
 

Hey,

I am currently riding a 1992 Sportster 883. I wanted to lower the back to give it that bobber look and instead of making it a true rigid frame (I don't know have the know-how to weld on a kit) I bought 10" solid struts.
It is as awful as you know, but I love it.
I just don't love it enough to keep them!

I want to keep that low rear fender and continue with the bobber look I'm striving for. My question is...

How do I put shocks back in (even if they're 10.5 or 11") without having my tire hitting my [now chopped] fender?

I see a lot of answers for newer sportsters, but as the internet has proven to be a lot less helpful than I had hoped with my poor 22 year old bike. I can't find sissy bar kits, very few exhaust options, and now this.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, perhaps my google-fu is just weak.

Thanks in advance,
Riot

Just because the fender is chopped doesn't necessarily mean it will be a clearance problem after reinstalling the shocks. Was the fender remounted using the original bolt holes after it was chopped. OR did you further modify the fender by redrilling and mounting in a lower position? I'm not really sure what your concern is here.

Hey Riot-

The way to keep your fender close to the tire, AND run shocks, is to mount your fender to the swingarm. This is not year specific.

You can see in the following link, step-by-step how I did it on my Sporty...it will work on yours too.

https://www.hdforums.com/forum/sport...-makeover.html

btw, a spring seat is a way to have a comfortable ride with your struts.

http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4f423138.jpg

Great Scott- Yeah, I was afraid that by adding that I chopped it, it would appear that was my concerns. This was not my intention. The concern was running short shocks to keep that bobber look that I'm striving for without rubbing my fender.

DKcustom- I'll look into those, but I'm almost wondering if mounting the fender higher will defeat the purpose of short shocks...from an aesthetic standpoint. I may have to just accept defeat on a rigid frame unless I can actually do the real deal weld on kit.
That said, your bike is beautiful.
Thanks guys!

I'm running the 10" Lick's Short Shocks (Gen I) on my 2000 sporty. I've never bottomed the fender on the tire. The ride is still stiff or harsher than you think because with the lower shocks comes less spring travel/compression. I think they only compress about a 1/2" or 1" tops. They have a Gen II shock that has some tension adjustment.

Click HERE to see a complete line of sprung Solo Seat Systems.

The fender is made from a blank that I got at Led Sled. The sissy bar is a solid 1/2" bar that was heated and bent into shape. I don't know of anyone making a sissy bar that you can just bolt on...but it is not that much work to make a custom one for yourself, once you decide what you want.

The other option is, you can run a swingarm mounted fender right close to your tire (with or without shocks) with no sissy bar needed.

Robbie13 on the forum here did just that. You can see how in this thread-

https://www.hdforums.com/forum/dyna-...der-build.html

By mounting the fender to the swingarm you are keeping the fender as close to the tire as you want, and you can run shocks or struts...it will not change how close the fender is to the tire, because the fender now moves up and down with the tire.

I did it this way so my fender hugged the tire and I still had the option of running struts or shocks.

DK- Thanks for all of your input.

I was shopping around your site for some parts to finally make this project a reality. It appears all of your seats are for the 2004-present sportster.
Not a ton of options in the way of a 1992.

Would what need to be made differently in order to make this work?

I'm also going to shoot you a PM.

Thanks.

Short shocks are worse than struts. I like my struts just fine, if I got rid of them I wouldn't go with 10 1/2" or 11", I would go 13" progressive.

Isn't that even taller than stock height?
The idea is to go for the bobber look, but I lack the knowledge and resources to use a weldon hard tail kit (such as Haifley Brothers).

Yes, it's taller but anything shorter doesn't really work & may as well be rigid struts.