Hey all - my wife and I just bought our very first bike yesterday - a lovely 2007 500R. The issue is, the bike is a tad bit tall for her (5'2). Since she's just learning, we dont want her to be struggling with touching the ground when she needs to, so of course the bike is gonna need to be lowered.

Now, my background is with cars - not bikes, so please explain this like I'm a mechanical idiot: how do we lower it? What do we need to lower it? And how much can it be lowered it needed?

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate it. I apologize in advance if this has been covered before - I tried searching but did not have very much luck.

 

Hey Damen.
Congratulations on having the good taste to pick this bike and the good fortune to score a riding wife!
Start with the rear:
Put the bike on the centerstand. If you've got a pretty long drift and can reach the lockring and pre-load ring on the rear shock, it will go pretty quickly with a few hammer-whacks. Just loosen the preload ring and the rear end will lower.
If you want to be meticulous about it, I'd remove the rear shock, make the adjustments with a spanner, detail everything, grease all of the pivot points and reinstall it. Some people like installing new links in their suspension (called 'dogbones' in biker circles) but the preload range on the stock shock will let you lower it nearly two inches.

The front is a little trickier:
Bike on centerstand and elevate the front (or hold down the rear with weights.) You'll have to remove the handlebars, open up the forks (which is a PITA, because you have to compress the fork caps while removing the tiny &*^#$ circular clip. After that, everything is easy! Just remove the washers and tubular steel forkspring spacers. You can either cut these to a shorter length, or you can take them to a hardware store and get aluminum spacer stock. Of course you'll want to make sure your cut spacer is well deburred and cleaned before putting it back in your fork.
Pretty simple: to lower the front end about an inch, cut about an inch from these spacers.
Fortunately, reinserting these &*^#$ circlips is much easier than removing them, especially after you've reduced the preload on the springs.

Caution your wife!: Now that the bike is lower, she will have lost some cornering clearance and it will be easier to scrape parts while going around corners. Lowering this bike even an inch sacrifices a large amount of cornering clearance.
You might be able to get away with lowering only the front or only the rear, but it will make the bike handle strangely. Lowering only the rear makes the bike feel stable, but also makes the bike corner like the HMS Queen Mary. Lowering only the front has nearly the opposite effect.
Good luck and let us know how it goes.
Peace!
-Chris in C'bad

 

(oops, double-post deleted.)

 

lol, remember how I said I'm a mechanical idiot? What you just said there, while I'm sure is really helpful... means nothing to me lol. What/where is the preload ring?

Thanks for the help

 

In that case, I recommend getting the factory service manual and supplement. It costs 60-$70 for the set, but it will quickly pay for itself.
It covers all these operations with photos and goes step-by-step like a cookbook.
In addition, you can also go to buykawasaki.com >> [owner info] >> [parts diagrams] >>
then navigate to your bike and view the exploded parts diagrams of each section of the bike. Sorry I can't forward you direct links--their site is asp-based and doesn't really allow direct linking.

The lock ring will be two notched shiny-metal rings toward the lower half of the black rear shock.

 

Thank you, I will do just as you suggested!

 

hahaha, you will get it in the end for sure if you get that manual and work on your rides. Have fun. Nice how to explaination calamarichris

 

Hey, I just lowered an ex500 for my GF (who is also 5'2") last weekend. I bought a set of dog bones as mentioned above. Lowering the bike was really simple. I simply drained the gas from the carbs using the drain screw at the bottom of each float bowl (optional but necessary if you don't want to spill gasoline). I then laid the bike on its side onto a a couple tires being sure not to put any pressure on the fairings (cracking these = big bucks). I then unbolted the old dog bones and put in the new longer ones. The net result is about a 2 inch lower and the lady can now almost flat foot the bike. Below is a link to similar dogbones I bought. They have a stock and a lower setting. The entire process took about 15 min.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...m=110143643085

 

metalman, what is wrong with just slinging the ride to the rafters or to your cherry picker instead of laying the ride on its side?

edit: Welcome to the forums

 

Another idea for lowering your 500!!
I also have a 500 and am about 5'2 5'3 or so. What I did instead of lowering the bike like that because it messes with the hadeling of the bike a lil bit, I just took the seat off, pulled the staples out of the bottom and used a electric knife to shave some of the foam of the seat!! It works great and it eally doesn't coast anything at all to do it.