He showed up at the house at 8am and we were done with the lowering studs by 10am. My only regret is I didn't take pictures. No hydraulic press, no special tool to bust off those crazy tight rear shock mount bolts. Did have the Harley preload adjusting tool (less than $10). Used two of my huge sliding C-Clamps with a piece of 1 1/2x4 piece of aluminum tubing to use as the pushing force over the stud to remove the c-clip so we could disassemble the shocks.

Jacked up the bike on my Sears lift, lowered the bike onto two automotive jackstands positioned as far back as possible on the frame. Lowered bike on to stands letting the front tire rest on the cement and used Sears lift to raise and lower the rear tire to allow access to the rear bolts and remove shocks.

The rear bolts are easy without Harley special tool number (dunno, but wasn't about to buy it) by having two people. One holds the box end side of a 3/4" wrench on the bolt head hanging down as the other guy uses a short handled mini-sledge hitting the open end side. When these suckers break free it sounds like a bone breaking...freaky. So be accurate and hit her square more than once.

He's a happy guy now with a FXST that looks RIGHT. We only dropper her 1" but he has enough stud left to do another 1".