How To Lower A Motorcycle!

Carlos wants to lower a motorcycle. Specifically he want to lower a Sportster frame. Here's his Question:

Do you have on sale a manual on motorcycle lowering? I have a 883 Sportster Standard 2002, but the seat position is to high for me, I have short legs. I installed some lowering kits but I cant lower it more and it's still to high for me. Do you have some way to work this on the frame directly? Thanks! Blessings!

Answer to how to lower a motorcycle:

Lowering a sportster frame by making a frame modification is going to be very involved and will require some work. There are several ways to do this depending on the look you are going for.  See photo below... 

First of all, you really can't touch the backbone or the down rails since those are sized for the engine. Unless you have some space here to play with, these are pretty much fixed.  That only leaves the area circled in red.  Right now the height of this is usually around 18 inches or so.

Motorcycle lowering kits will help by bring the tires up and lowering the frame.  The clearance to the ground should be close to 5 inches but with a lowering kit you may be much lower than this.  Be careful around speed bumps.

To lower a motorcycle in terms of modifying the frame, what you'll have to do is create a bend and attach the seat joint lower on the vertical post between the engine and tranny.

Also make sure you leave space for your transmission and you may need to relocate your oil bag and other components that may be in that area.  The backbone will then have to be adjusted so that it connects from a lower point.

This should help you in your motorcycle lowering efforts, lowering the frame that is, to the point you are comfortable with. The look of the bike will change so make sure you are fine with this kind of change before committing to it. Happy Building!

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