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General Category >> Rubber Side Down! >> Change rake on '87 savage
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Message started by bacon13 on 05/21/08 at 21:05:32

Title: Change rake on '87 savage
Post by bacon13 on 05/21/08 at 21:05:32

I am looking for some help in extending my fork or increasing the rake to get my bike to be similar to Rockin_John or German_Leo. How do I do this? Are there other bike forks that can be swapped out or is this a custom job?

Any help I can get, please!

Title: Re: Change rake on '87 savage
Post by demin on 05/22/08 at 15:53:25

There are a couple companies that sell the kit.One is Seeger cycle.
The other I can't thinkl of right now.Something like ACE or ACC.Punch in "chopper kits".
They aint cheap. :o

Title: Re: Change rake on '87 savage
Post by vroom1776 on 05/23/08 at 05:29:20

Title: Re: Change rake on '87 savage
Post by bacon13 on 05/23/08 at 21:48:04

Wow, I guess they are expensive. Seeger's kit is $1700 bucks. :'( I guess this idea is out of the question for me.

Rockin_John or German_Leo-
Did you both use a kit for conversion or how did you increase the rake on your bikes?

Title: Re: Change rake on '87 savage
Post by Rockin_John on 05/24/08 at 00:24:10

I'm not sure all the kits that are advertised are even available any longer. And I wouldn't spend half what a bike is worth just to extend the forks a bit more. The stock 35º rake on the Savage will handle +4" tubes and still handle well. I even prefer the jacked up center of gravity and lean back in the seat, and also like the way mine handles as well or better than the other ones with stock length tubes. However, I would NOT go over 4" without proper frame adjustments or you could be asking for serious and dangerous trouble. And note that a fork brace will help the handling a great deal, especially with the long forks.

So... If you want to go up to +4" and don't mind raising the bike and tilting it back a bit, the stock trees and frame angle are fine. If you want to go longer and/or lower, you need a triple tree kit or frame modifications to make thing handle right. But personally I don't care for the idea of tubes more than +6" or maybe 8" for daily street riding, as I think they are dangerous. These +12" tubes you see at 45º on show bikes are great for show, but I wouldn't risk my life on the metal fatigue involved in flexing tubes at that angle for thousands of miles. But it's their neck...

Oh yeah... fork legs up to +4" over can be had at Frank's maintenance and engineering (also known as "Forking by Frank") Goggle them up and give them a call. Friendly people been in business about as long as I've been riding (close to 40 years now). Can't beat their price either.

Title: Re: Change rake on '87 savage
Post by bacon13 on 05/25/08 at 21:16:11

Thanks Rockin_John. I wouldn't and won't pay half what a bike is worth for this either. I will check into Frank's and see what they can offer. I like the idea of just a bit longer forks, makes the bike look longer since it is a shorter frame anyways.

Title: Re: Change rake on '87 savage
Post by BTTBRR on 05/28/08 at 08:05:36

I saw in a post where a guy in germany used an ame tree to change the rake, I think he used a 13*

Title: Re: Change rake on '87 savage
Post by jomiyo on 05/28/08 at 11:00:14

What kind of work is it to put in new tubes?

special tools involved?

Title: Re: Change rake on '87 savage
Post by Robertomoe on 05/28/08 at 11:22:02

be careful with rake adjustment kits, you can seriously change the trail on the bike and even create a negative trail.

Title: Re: Change rake on '87 savage
Post by jomiyo on 05/28/08 at 13:40:40

... riiiiiiight ... what's that do :-?

Title: Re: Change rake on '87 savage
Post by bacon13 on 05/28/08 at 14:10:37

If your serious, read this: http://www.jpcycles.com/tech/articles/tripletrees.aspx

Title: Re: Change rake on '87 savage
Post by Robertomoe on 05/28/08 at 14:12:17

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_and_motorcycle_dynamics

to find trail, you draw two lines. The first is one comes straight down from the front wheel at the axle. The second is one is drawn through the steering head to the ground. On all bikes, the first line will be behind the one drawn from the head. This is considered positive trail and most bikes have between 2-5 inches of trail. Less trail means that the wheel will move with less input, which is why sport bikes can handle sharp turns and choppers cant. On the open road at high speeds, that ease of steering turns into wobblyness, so choppers are more stable in straight lines. When you get a triple tree that simply kicks the bottom of the forks out, you are moving the wheel farther forward. The angle of the steering head is still the same with these kits, so your trail is smaller and a poorly designed one will give you negative trail, making your bike impractical to steer.

When you extend the forks and/or change the angle of the steering head so that it goes farther forward, the trail is extended, giving it high speed stability.

Title: Re: Change rake on '87 savage
Post by Rockin_John on 05/29/08 at 05:47:40

Thanks for the helpful links guys, but I "did the math" on my +4" conversion using the Savage's stock 35º rake (which happens to change some as you raise the bike with the extended forks, and consider that the rear shocks on mine have been dropped about 3/4"). Still, it is within reasonable and safe mathematical limits for a street bike. Furthermore, it handles very well at low and high speeds and will do a U-turn easily on the average 20' side street.

The math really isn't that difficult when figuring rake and trail anyways. More like HS geometry instead of the rocket science that some would make it seem. You do need to do a lot of measuring of the bike's tires, wheelbase, etc... but there are some free calculators available on the 'net that will figure the trail for you by just plugging in the numbers.

The more recent "chopper" kit builders for the Savage: Seeger, and AME? both took proper rake and trail into considerations in their kits, and my only beef with them is their cost, and sometimes using as long as +12" tubes with 45º of rake. The stress/flex on the fork tubes over time must be enough to cause damage eventually. OK for show, not too cool for actually riding for years...

Title: Re: Change rake on '87 savage
Post by jomiyo on 05/29/08 at 07:25:27

I was serious, i didn't know what trail was. I always understood that if you had a longer front end you wouldn't be able to turn well, just never knew what it was called.

Title: Re: Change rake on '87 savage
Post by bacon13 on 05/29/08 at 16:03:30

Jomiyo- it is hard to "read" sarcasm on a forum. I didn't know if you were serious or not. I am far from even a novice when it come to this topic, which is why I started this thread. I have done some research on it and posted the link for that reason. I knew nothing about trail and rake before.

Rockin_John- I emailed Frank's but no response as of yet.

Title: Re: Change rake on '87 savage
Post by Robertomoe on 05/29/08 at 21:50:52

http://www.hondachopper.com/Manual.htm

the first few pages are great references on forks, and theres a lot of cool customization info in there as well