Lowering a pointy - any pointers?

Myself, along with my dad are planning to lower my girlfriends K5 SV650S this weekend. She's only wickle at 5'5" and weighs next to nothing and doesn't have much confidence in lugging the bike around when its stationary. She's fine on it when we're going along, but doesn't get on with the bike when it comes to stopping and standing up with it. She can't get her feet flat on the floor, so feels that if the bike was lowered, she'd be able to plant her feet flat and have more confidence with the bike.

Having read up on it on here and a couple of other places, we got her some 25mm longer dog bones and plan to drop the forks 10mm to balance the bike out.

So basically i'm asking for any pointers that you guys could give us to help in doing this, and a heads up to any problems that we might encounter. I'm not that mechanically minded and neither is she. My dad is a bike mechanic, but works pretty much exclusively with 1960's Royal Enfields which he restores and repairs. I'm not sure if his knowledge of bikes will extend to the comparitively futuristic SV

Cheers in advance guys and girls!

[Stu]

Get good spanners, I found my suspension linkages torqued up to buggery.
But it sounds like you know what you're doing good luck.
Have you got an Abba stand to do it on?

[skeetly]

You need someone to take the pressure off the suspension spring at the back because taking the links off disconnects the bike from the swinging arm.
I did it on my own using a car engine hoist with webbing slings through the pillion peg mounts. Would have been better if I'd used the grab rail really; at that point i hadn't realised the grab rail is very securely bolted to the same subframe the peg mounts are.
Ho hum.
Anyways you either need a someone who is iwlling to bascially take the weight of the back of the bike and raise it up and down for a few seconds or a hoist
Or one of them fancy bike lifts under the frame I spose.
When you look under the bike you will see the 2 bolts that pass through the links.
One of mine was easy the other was tight enough to need a 2' pipe on a socket bar.
I'd use hexagonal sockets to get a nice secure grip on the bolt heads.

suzuki also do a lower seat which helps alot or you can modify the original one.

Originally Posted by skeetly

You need someone to take the pressure off the suspension spring at the back because taking the links off disconnects the bike from the swinging arm.
I did it on my own using a car engine hoist with webbing slings through the pillion peg mounts. Would have been better if I'd used the grab rail really; at that point i hadn't realised the grab rail is very securely bolted to the same subframe the peg mounts are.
Ho hum.
Anyways you either need a someone who is iwlling to bascially take the weight of the back of the bike and raise it up and down for a few seconds or a hoist
Or one of them fancy bike lifts under the frame I spose.
When you look under the bike you will see the 2 bolts that pass through the links.
One of mine was easy the other was tight enough to need a 2' pipe on a socket bar.
I'd use hexagonal sockets to get a nice secure grip on the bolt heads.

If you dont have an engine lift a small trolly jack does the business put the jack under the rear of the engine use some wood also so as not to damage anything, and then jack it up onto the sidestand if you know what i mean just to the point when the rear wheel is going to lift then you will be able to remove the dogbones! just dont leave it like that overnight incase the jack goes down in which case you would be in a world of pain. Goodluck

Good thing about having a dad who's a bike mechanic - car engine hoist, 2 ton trolley jack and bike lift! Shouldn't be a problem getting it off the ground. Plenty of tools as well, all snap on so shouldn't have a problem with that either.

suzuki also do a lower seat which helps alot or you can modify the original one.

I've spotted one on ebay, so if she still feels like the bike is too high, then we'll try and get it.

Am I right in saying that in order to do the forks, you just need to loosen the clamps, lower the bike down on the forks, make sure its gone down 10mm and then tighten them up again? Nothing else to fiddle with?

Originally Posted by trinyquist

Am I right in saying that in order to do the forks, you just need to loosen the clamps, lower the bike down on the forks, make sure its gone down 10mm and then tighten them up again? Nothing else to fiddle with?

Yep thats it

Originally Posted by trinyquist

Myself, along with my dad are planning to lower my girlfriends K5 SV650S this weekend. She's only wickle at 5'5" and weighs next to nothing and doesn't have much confidence in lugging the bike around when its stationary. She's fine on it when we're going along, but doesn't get on with the bike when it comes to stopping and standing up with it. She can't get her feet flat on the floor, so feels that if the bike was lowered, she'd be able to plant her feet flat and have more confidence with the bike.

Having read up on it on here and a couple of other places, we got her some 25mm longer dog bones and plan to drop the forks 10mm to balance the bike out.

So basically i'm asking for any pointers that you guys could give us to help in doing this, and a heads up to any problems that we might encounter. I'm not that mechanically minded and neither is she. My dad is a bike mechanic, but works pretty much exclusively with 1960's Royal Enfields which he restores and repairs. I'm not sure if his knowledge of bikes will extend to the comparitively futuristic SV

Cheers in advance guys and girls!

hiya i am only 5"2 so empathise with yr girlfriend loads, we put the dog bones on my sv which was easy, and lowered forks wich did quicken the corners a bit the handling was a little different, but the cut down seat was the bit that sealed it for me; u can have it cut down at loads of places. once it was lowered for me i felt loads more confident on her.

Do you not think it's worth trying just the cut down seat on its own first? Might save you the bother, and won't compramise ground clearance.

Could also go for the 40mm dogbones like mine if you find it`s still too high. Best of luck