CASE STUDIES - AME CHOPPER MOTORCYCLE KITS

AME 14° Rake Chopper kit installation on a Suzuki Intruder by Dave Stuart from Vancouver, Canada.

A brief history of installation of the AME chopper kit on my 1988 Suzuki Intruder – and a couple of tips and comments…

1. Here is how things looked at the start – stock as it came from the factory, except for a Corbin seat and badging removed: I used a pair of steel 4x4’s and a pair of wood 4x4’s to hold the bike up off the ground, and just jacked it up with a floor jack – with a friend to help hold it steady until the blocks were in place under the cross member that runs under the engine between the foot pegs.

2. I labeled all the electrical on both sides of each connection one at a time before disassembly – sure made putting things back together a lot easier.

3. While disassembling the front end, I used miniature rubber caps to seal off the master cylinders and cables – saves bleeding time later, and is a lot less messy. Keep lots of rags handy -brake fluid likes to eat paint!

4. The front end is off and the new triple trees are fitted into place– simple disassembly – keep all your parts sorted out!

5. I took the new tubes and the old forks into a local shop for assembly – it took them 1.75 hours to do the swap – turns out one of the old assemblies was frozen – if your ride is newer it shouldn’t take a good shop more than an hour. Fitted things together with no problems.

6. Almost complete! Bleeding the front brake took quite a while – wish that I had bought a power bleeder! My rubber stoppers made bleeding the clutch pretty short work. I loosened the brake and clutch handles one at a time and positioned them temporarily further up the handlebars to keep them as close to level as possible during bleeding.

Before and after the AME custom chopper kit
Note: Had the spark plug covers off at the end – decided to do a tune up at the same time.

With running around picking up supplies (brake fluid, a couple of Allen keys etc.) the whole process took about 3 days.

Driving – it is different – feels very heavy at low speeds, and forget about making any U-turns unless you have lots of room. Once driving everything is just fine!

Appearance – I think that the kit makes the Intruder look great!