HOW - TO : Lower Suzuki Savage LS650 Forks

[Gardener1]

Dude, this has got to be one of the best demos I've seen! Big, clear photos! Excellent job!

[Guest]

Hi, New to chop cult, Brilliant "how to", nice and clear. Anyway, i've shortened my forks by 2 1/2 inches following your how to and just wondered now it comes to replacing the oil, Does it require the same standard amount or does the oil level also have to be reduced? Cheers, Stan.

[Punkskalar]

Hi, New to chop cult, Brilliant "how to", nice and clear. Anyway, i've shortened my forks by 2 1/2 inches following your how to and just wondered now it comes to replacing the oil, Does it require the same standard amount or does the oil level also have to be reduced? Cheers, Stan.

Start with the same amount of oil as stock. Has always worked for me

[BillyT]

Did some research about adding oil to stiffen up the forks. What I read was that it will really only add stiffness at the very bottom of the travel, which is actually kind of a good thing to keep things from bottoming out. I didn't have a super good way to measure, so I just added two cap fulls(the cap from the oil container) to each side, and haven't had any issues without bottoming out, and the bike rides great. I'm running 10wt syn fork oil, and my forks are lowered about 5 inches.

[fastbub]

I think this is an awesome how to and a great cheap mod. I went 2/1/2 inches and it looks good.

When I did it, i didn't remove the uppers from the trees and I didn't seperate the lowers from the uppers.

I just.......

popped the top off, pulled out spacer,washer,spring,

Turned the forks upside down and drained the oil out

used the homemade tool to unbolt the dampening rod.

Turned them more upside down and the dampening rod fell out.

Cut a piece of the old handlebars for a spacer 2.5" and put it between the spring and the top of the rod

dropped it back in. (tapered seat still left in the lower, it dropped right into it. you will know it because it has to go in the seat in order for the bottom allen bolt to thread into it.

put springs and stuff back in and cut spring spacer 2 1/2".

So I skipped taking the legs out of the trees and skipped separating the uppers an lowers.

I think this is ok. Whole mod was like 30 minutes for both sides.

P.S. This assumes the fork is off the bike already.

It looks like Ryca has a how to on these and they skip the separating lowers from uppers as well.

[elhefa]

Excellent write-up!! I followed it to a T, 3 1/2" lower spacers... couple of questions though. What was the final length of the top spacer after it was cut? (mine came out at 1 3/4") My stock spacers were not equal in length, so I cut them both to 1 3/4", removing 3 1/2" give or take. Is it necessary to drill the hole in the spacer like the XS650 lower spacer? I was just curious if I would see any benefit from doing this on Savage forks.