looking at new rear shocks for 16 low rider , most seem to go for lowering , but thats shit ,

Two things wrong with this bike ,, poor ground clearance  , and short travel ... rough as guts on qld roads . new Harleys only built for US freeways .

I am lookin at Ikons with 25 mm longer length ,, and 25 mm extra travel ,

does anyone know if this upsets belt drive angles or any thing else  ........

 

THEN there is the next proplem front fork travel , ,

i have already turned the top tripple tree upside down an machined the taper  an got extra 20 mm ground clearance ,  32 mm spacer on top of fork springs which gives about another 20 mm ground clearance ( mosty in corners 

BUT that does not give any more travel ,, i am looking at pulling forks apart to see if i can machine bushes , stops , dampens ects to get longer travel ( an exta 25 mm is what needed )

 

Has any one played around with these forks or got ideas .

 

My 26 year old FXRS-SP lowrider leaves this new one for dead in the hills , and much smoother on qld roads , i am a bit dissapionted with the handling of this new bike .

Mad 

 

 

I almost bought a Lowrider demo a while back, I'm sort of glad I didn't now, it can be a bit hard to tell what a bikes like long term when you've only had a short test ride.

I've used Ikon shocks and they're fine (better than stock) but not as good as the Progressive 444 shocks I'm using now.

I'd suggest either gold valves in the front end or replacing the fork springs (as I did) combined with new shocks would go some way to fixing your problem.

Yes it is lack of travel  , south of Gympie on freeways its not to bad , when your sraping the pipes around corners an hit big bumps near throws ya  , me old fxr just goes over em ...

1990 fxr has 4 inches travel , 2016 fxdl  has 1.6 inches

Yah but I asked was it bottoming? That's caused by not enough spring weight (need heavier springs)

Or is it topping out? That's a lack of rebound damping (need different shocks)

have done a bit of googling , yep the old man conversion ,, dont know why they call it that ,, mainly use dyna dampeners ,, on the 48 s ,, part no 45925-94

can not find any longer damper tubes so started makin a spacer 65 mm long give an extra 50 mm ground clearance and 65 mm exta travel and longer bolts in bottom of forks   ,,,,  spacer is the top bit ,,, this will give total fork travel 155mm close to an fxr

Got it back together WOW 195 mm travel available , coil bind on springs at 175mm same as fxr , but thats good enough ,,, will have to work on springs  now as Harley have put in short spings and a 200 mm spacer (HD do some dumb stuff ) , now will have to buy 2 sets progressive springs and cut 1 up to get spring length needed

heres the 2 bits i made

 

A 4 inch fork extenstion is available doin the old man conversion , BUT ya can only go about 2.5 inches till ya run outa brake line , have to go ENZED see what they can make , but there is another dumb HD thing with the ABS brake lines i will propably have to make a new boss as there is nothin available ...

Any HOW took it for a test ride , and hit all the big bumbs in our local roads that i usually botom out on ,, front forks only using 125 mm travel ,, back bottoming out hard ,, SO its works GOOD ,,,, just waiting for a new set of 444 progessive rears with double the travel for rear ,, then i can start tuning the set up ...

with the new rears shocks i will have close to same ground clearance as FXRS -SP ,, be interesting to see if this new bike will handle close to me old one