PE250c shock length

[terrapista]

Hi.
I have original KYB shocks rebuilt by Rod at Rad. Problem is they are 400mm eye to eye and the ones I have on now are 375mm. I rather have 375mm as I am only 5'5 tall and I believe changes to geometry have to be done also for the forks.
From the ozvmx forum I looked at Leith's response to this issue as follows

"the problem will the in the chain/swing arm pivot area. the longer shocks will put too much of a angle on the swing arm and chain may rub/hit swing arm a lot more than usual and will rip through the buffer in no time. i dont recommend going this much longer. a better option would be to shorten the shocks, either by shortening shaft and or shorter lower eye, both easily done. chances are they already have too much shaft stroke for the 250 B anyway."

How is shortening done as he mentions it is easily done. Otherwise i would have to sell them. My shocks have been rebuilt to be rebuildable which is a shame to let go of as many OEM shocks are not rebuildable and they look straight outta the factory.
Thank you for any help and happy new year!

[ESR80PE]

Not really sure what that quote is from. It seems taken out of context. It would appear that what i am talking about refers to someone trying to put longer shocks on a bike not putting shorter shocks on. By easy i think i would have been refering to shortenng ohlins. Again, id like to see the rest of the conversation and then i can probably explain what i am on about.

So you have a PE250C and you want shorter shocks on it?

78 shocks are 383mm long +/- a mm or 2 or right about 15". I know the Ohlins they made at 383mm so that why i had that figure in my head.

I really would not use standard 400mm T/X shocks on a 78/79 model and shorten though . You will loose a tonne of stroke because the only way is to shorten shafts or put a 25mm spacer inside if you want 375mm? The T/X shocks are not ideal design for C/N because they have the longer lower eyes. If you had different shocks with shorter lower eyes then you could shortten them but still have a reasonable amount of stroke and wheel travel. if you took 25mm out of T/X shocks you will end up with 89mm shaft stroke and this will equate to little travel. probably equal to a pre 75 bike. Better option would be to shorten the actual shock body a but and shorten the stroke a bit. Probably 1/2" off both to keep things in proportion. If you took 25mm out the shock body it creates issue of the shaft bottoming out inside against the gas dividing piston.

Anyway i have tried to answer this thinking i know what you want to do but i may still have mis understood what you are needed so if i have please add more info and i will revise my info/suggestions.

At this stage i am thinking cut your losses and sell the 400mm T/X shocks to someone who needs those and get shocks the length you need or at least some easily rebuildable ones that can be more easily modded eg Ohlins.

[terrapista]

Thanks for your time
Absolutely correct as i don't want to continue mucking around. I will try to sell them and rebuild the 375mm shocks I have with Rad Suspension.
Comments attributed to yourself were indeed to a longer to shorter issue on a different forum and correctly explained now. Apologies. Fairly new to mechanicals and dirt bikes and vintage overall.
I have the suzuki parts database now and will research things before commenting.

[ESR80PE]

Another thing i did not mention is that by taking 25mm out the length of the shat that will cause issues with the springs too.