What about forks from another suzuki cafe bike? Which ones? I'm just gathering information right now

Ok good to know. Is there already a stock spacer in the tube's? I had to re do the lower fork bearing and upper as the lower was packed with old grease and dirt.

Hmmm when I took off the tube caps there were smaller tube's inside. Are those spacers or no?

Bohica88 wrote on 08/27/24 at 13:47:46:


As Ohio said - that is how the preload on the springs is adjusted.  The length of those can be adjusted to tune the forks to your weight - or make adjustments for any weight or chassis change you create on the bike.

Installing longer rear shocks will move some weight forward and you may need to make adjustments to those spacers.  New spacers can be made from PVC water pipe.

1.Why change wheel size? Tire selection  and what else? Cruisers use 15 & 16 inch diameter wheels with wide, tall and heavy tires.  All that mass helps the bike stay stable - it hurts acceleration and cornering.  Cafe' bikes emulate the "sport" and "race" bikes from 50 years ago that were looking for performance and speed.  Norton/BMW/Ducati/Triumph and similar bikes ran narrow tires by current standards and they have excellent handling.  A 4.00x18 rear tire was very capable of holding up a 400 pound bike with 60 or more HP - and can still do so today.   I ran a 110/90-18 rear tire on my bike when I had a 2.50x18 rim and I never lacked for traction and the tire did not wear out any faster than the 130/70-18 tire I currently run on a 3.50-18 rim.

2. Are you raising the rear ends? Different shocks or different shock placement? Most of the Cafe' or Tracker projects use longer rear shocks to change the rake of the bike (along with lowered forks).  I am running 340mm shocks on mine - which is really at the maximum height.....if you go any higher the angle of the swingarm is excessive and you have problems with belt tension.  With longer shocks you need to run the drive belt a bit looser at rest - the belt tightens when you ride the bike and the shocks compress.  

3. Why not use the stock speedo and fab a housing to mount on the bars? I was looking at it last night and thought it would look pretty sick up there.  The stock speedometer is not all that accurate - and it gets even worse when you start changing wheel and tire size.  Routing a stiff drive cable up to the handlebars is not easy - nor is finding a proper length cable.  Using a GPS speedometer is much easier and accurate - plus you get extra features like a trip odometer.  You can also use less expensive speedometers that use a magnet on the wheel to measure the speed/distance - you just need to mount the sensor on the bike and and a magnet on the rim.

4. I frequent the local salvage yard and wondered what foot controls would mount up and work with the least modification.  While I have a grinder and welder I'm out of practice. There are several threads in the Bike Build Section that detail what others have done.  For me the easiest method is to use pegs that have the lever for the shifter or brake lever built into the peg.  This saves you the trouble of having to fabricate brake/shifter pedals and the bearings.  Making the footpegs and control levers is one of the most labor intensive parts of building a Cafe' or Tracker.  Most modern motorcycles use a hydraulic rear brake and the brake pedal is not configured for a brake cable - so adapting pegs from a newer bike is not easy......and similarly older bikes with cable or lever activated brakes are often very cumbersome to adapt the mounts

I think that's all I have at the moment.  Thought it best to put all my questions here rather than hijacking other people's threads.


If you go look through the Bike Builds you will see how others have built peg mounts for their bikes.