I have an 01 Wide Glide with bent rear frame rails. Can anyone give me the measurements from the fender to the top of the rim or tell me where the bottom of the fender aligns with the sidewall?

 

It's gonna vary, depending on the length of the shocks. You can pretty much eyeball the position of the struts by looking at a photo of a stock bike and then just make sure that both sides are perfectly level in relation to each other.

I did a couple of FXD's that way a few years ago and they came out fine.

 

Thanks Greezey. You are the first to give me a sensible response. Everyone I talk to is is scared to death of this. Of course, the HD dealership is treating me like a leper because they can't scare me into a new bike. I figured the best way to do it is locate the bend, heat it with a torch and bend only once. Is that the way you did it?

I have stock shocks that have never been wound up or down.



If anyone can take a close up pic of a 99-05 Wideglide showing where on the sidewall the bottom of the fender aligns with the sidewall of the rear tire I would appreciate it. The pics posted above shows the shape of the fender. I have a 5" wide Dunlop D401, 130/90b16 rear tire. I only want to heat this thing up once if I have to.

 

I bent them cold...We rigged a press up and used that to do the hard work.
I completely disassembled the bike, to the bare frame...It's necessary to do this.


Put the frame on a perfectly level concrete floor and use some blocking to make sure it's absolutely level. Then measure the distance from the floor to the center of the rearmost bolt hole in the struts to get the struts to the height you want them.

Then place a level across both struts and then raise or lower one to be even with the other....It may take a few try's to get them perfect, but I can't stress enough how important it is that they be perfectly even/level.
When they are dead level with each other and at the height that you want, You're done, and then you can put the bike back together.

It's a huge job to do correctly and I have just given you some of the general points that you need to do it....There are always details that will occur with a project like this that have to be addressed as they arise.

If you're gonna do it quick and dirty without taking the bike to the bare frame....GET THE BIKE PERFECTLY LEVEL and use a carpenters level to bridge the struts to get them level....Otherwise the bike will "feel" weird.

The one customer wanted the bike to look lower without losing his cornering ability, so I left his struts just a little lower than they originally were, but not enough out of straight to look weird or interfere with the tire...It worked pretty well and the guy was happy.

I'm personally not into low bikes....I like to get them up high enough to be able to slam them pretty hard through the twisties without dragging stuff.

 

Thanks Greezey. I agree.
It's good to know they can be bent cold. The bends are before the shock mount. I leveled the frame at the dashboard, and verified everything was bubble level at the frame. It all looks good. I will go over to the Dyna forum and have somone measure rim to the bottom of the frame rail.

 

I'm home right now....I'll measure the bike in a little while and get back on here and post the measurement with a couple of photos to give you a better perspective.

 

Here are a couple of pics with the tape measure.....
The first is from the top of the wheel to the rim, bear in mind that I'm running an 18" wheel instead of a 16". From the top edge of the rim to the bottom of the strut is 3" (without the chrome strut cover)




The second is from the top of the swing arm to the fender strut...The measurement is 11" to the bottom of the strut (without the chrome strut cover)

 

Thanks Greezey. Your mention of lower rails making the bike look lower brings me back to reality. The rails do not have to be exactly where HD put them. I appreciate your help. I will let you know how it turns out.