My newy aquired 2005 TTR 250 is being turned into my version of a MONTANA Overlanding Machine as I have seen this term for riding in the backcounty roads on posts.
1. I have lowered quite a few bikes for myself and customers to make a more comfortable ride height in rough terrain, to help folks challenged with shorter inseams and in my case 50 years of too much riding and stiff legs, and swinging by leg over gear and chain saws etc on my rack. After reading quire a few reviews of dirt bikes lowered 3" and still used in competition I decided that the TTR 250 was going down, 3".
2. Started with my forks. I pulled my forks and disassembled them. No real glitches, turns out the TTR250 forks are same as in almost all details as Kawasaki KDX 200 forks and I have rebuilt and RACE TECH GOLD VALVED these forks with great success and dropped most 2" at the same time. Couple of regular disassembly issues, I use a 1/2 air gun with appropriate allen socket to remove the compression valve out of the bottom of the forks. Short little burst of air and it will screw out. With my bike standing on garage floor, I used a ratchet strap to begin collapsing the forks until the bike ride height was down 3", my measurements show I had shortened the forks 3.5 inches to get the bike down 3'..............due to the fork angle. So 3.5 inch spacers needed to go in each fork/ on the dampening rod next to the top out spring.
3. I machined spacers 3.5 long x .406 inside diameter x .700 outside. But no need to fire a lathe really, cut some aluminum pipe, heavy plastic pipe, something fairly stout, but the right pipe and hacksaw is all you need. plastic spacers are usually what you get in kits to do lower ride height, so most anything will work.
4. I put my forks together with my new spacers, new seals and wipers and 120mm oil height. Race Tech says 100mm is better, I will find out after some ride time.
Now my springs are tooooo long. My bike came with 2" of steel tube spacers over the spring. So, spring out, then I cut about 3/4" off my springs with an air cut off abrasive tool. I ran a long threaded rod through my spring, nut and washer on each end and compressed my spring down to a 17" length. With a propane torch I heated the spring coils on the end of the spring previously cut, and as they almost reach a red glow, they relax due to the spring pressure, I did this until I had a full coil laying flat against the washer.
I also rebuilt and shorted my shock and I posted some notes and pictures on how I made the shock work. When I get the bike reassembled and a profile with a TTR250 3" down I will post it up.
-- Edited by sledman 1 on Monday 20th of November 2017 04:56:04 PM
