I am 198cm tall, and most of it is legs.
When I bought my Wee it didn't have enough leg-room, so being a curios dog, I started to research the topic wildly.
The two solutions I found was to either get a higher seat, or Buy Rick's foot-peg lowering kit.
The idea of a higher seat did not appeal to me since the strom's standard windscreen on its highest setting is already too low for my liking.
Foot-peg lowering was therefore the way to go:
This website has some nice pictures of the kit, and other stuff Rick makes for the DL's:
https://www.vstrom.info/Smf/index.php/topic,12988.0.html
Sadly, all the major currencies are currently real bullies that does not play nice with our Rand, resulting in the Kit ($50 + shipping) costing about R780 if you want to import it from America. (If you don't mind spending da ching, feel free to e-mail Rick. His response time is really fast considering he is in America, and he is very helpful and friendly.)
So, being a cheep-ass, I bought a piece of aluminium for R17-50 from a scrapyard, and started working...
Started out by tracing the footpeg-bracket down on a piece of cardboard, and then trace it down again on the same piece of cardboard, just 26mm lower, and 5mm forward. This gave me the layout of the lowering bracket I wanted.
I then cut the cardboard "template" out with scissors, and traced that down onto the Aluminium. Cut the shapes out with a hacksaw, filed the edges round, and voila:
Sorry for the crappy photos, they were never intended to be shared.
Made a tool to countersink two of the holes from a broken hacksaw blade and some threaded rod that I had laying around.
Lots of filing, and sanding later the two brackets were ready for some color.
I washed them with acetone to get rid of any oil, grease and sweat (a lot of that needed to be removed), and spray-painted it with a self etching primer, and a black final coat.
To get the paint to dry quicker I baked the brackets in the oven for about 20 minutes at 100C. The paint came out rock hard.
Installed:
As you can see in the picture above, I had to extend the brake master cylinder push rod with a long nut.
To get the gears to work properly, I had to rotate the lever that is attached to the rod that goes into the engine (what do you call that little bugger?) so that it is parallel with the ground. This ensures that the angle between the little bugger, the gear-linkage and gear lever stays the same.
To make sure that I don't get some bi-metallic corrosion down the line when the paint comes off, I also made plastic gaskets between the brackets and the frame, and the bolts and the brackets (you can see it sticking out around the bolts :
). Not sure if it is really necessary, but hay, it was easy, and gave me a little more peace of mind.
It is a big improvement, and my knees thank me after every long trip.
Next Mod is a proper windscreen.
When I bought my Wee it didn't have enough leg-room, so being a curios dog, I started to research the topic wildly.
The two solutions I found was to either get a higher seat, or Buy Rick's foot-peg lowering kit.
The idea of a higher seat did not appeal to me since the strom's standard windscreen on its highest setting is already too low for my liking.
Foot-peg lowering was therefore the way to go:
This website has some nice pictures of the kit, and other stuff Rick makes for the DL's:
https://www.vstrom.info/Smf/index.php/topic,12988.0.html
Sadly, all the major currencies are currently real bullies that does not play nice with our Rand, resulting in the Kit ($50 + shipping) costing about R780 if you want to import it from America. (If you don't mind spending da ching, feel free to e-mail Rick. His response time is really fast considering he is in America, and he is very helpful and friendly.)
So, being a cheep-ass, I bought a piece of aluminium for R17-50 from a scrapyard, and started working...
Started out by tracing the footpeg-bracket down on a piece of cardboard, and then trace it down again on the same piece of cardboard, just 26mm lower, and 5mm forward. This gave me the layout of the lowering bracket I wanted.
I then cut the cardboard "template" out with scissors, and traced that down onto the Aluminium. Cut the shapes out with a hacksaw, filed the edges round, and voila:
Sorry for the crappy photos, they were never intended to be shared.
Made a tool to countersink two of the holes from a broken hacksaw blade and some threaded rod that I had laying around.
Lots of filing, and sanding later the two brackets were ready for some color.
I washed them with acetone to get rid of any oil, grease and sweat (a lot of that needed to be removed), and spray-painted it with a self etching primer, and a black final coat.
To get the paint to dry quicker I baked the brackets in the oven for about 20 minutes at 100C. The paint came out rock hard.
Installed:
As you can see in the picture above, I had to extend the brake master cylinder push rod with a long nut.
To get the gears to work properly, I had to rotate the lever that is attached to the rod that goes into the engine (what do you call that little bugger?) so that it is parallel with the ground. This ensures that the angle between the little bugger, the gear-linkage and gear lever stays the same.
To make sure that I don't get some bi-metallic corrosion down the line when the paint comes off, I also made plastic gaskets between the brackets and the frame, and the bolts and the brackets (you can see it sticking out around the bolts :
). Not sure if it is really necessary, but hay, it was easy, and gave me a little more peace of mind.It is a big improvement, and my knees thank me after every long trip.
Next Mod is a proper windscreen.
