Kickstand removal

I have lowered the front and rear of my RSV and now need to shorten the kickstand. The shifting linkage prevents the removal of the bolt that holds the kickstand on. Anyone have any experience in changing out the kickstand? I am not knowing if it is better to disconnect the shifting linkage toward the rear or drop the floorboard. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

Why do you need to lower the kickstand? You only lowered the front 1". I know many riders who have lowered the front but never lowered the kickstand.

I lowered the front and rear. If you only lower the front you do not need to shorten the stand, if you lower both you need to shorten the stand.

There doesn't seem to be much information here for the removal of the kickstand, so here is what I ended up doing. I discovered it is much easier to remove the two bolts holding the left floorboard on than to try and disconnect the shifting linkage. Just remove the two bolts and drop the floorboard, the shifter bracket is attached to the floorboard and this will drop the linkage out of the way to allow for the removal of the bolt holding the kickstand.

I took 3/4" out of my kickstand and that is probably the minimum if you lower both front and rear of the bike. I will try to attach some pics to show how the bike sits as well as pictures of the kickstand.

Any questions, let me know.

Hi there! New to the group as just purchased a 2006 Venture. I am having it lowered in the front and rear. I am curious what you meant when you wrote "I took 3/4 out of my kickstand" ? Could you please explain - such as 3/4" from the top end - redrilling holes , etc. thx

It looks like he had a 3/4" section cut out, rewelded it and had it polished.

What I meant by taking 3/4" out of the kickstand was - down at the lower end of the stand we cut a piece out of the stand 7/8" long, the drilled into the foot and the long piece of the stand and threaded the inside of each hole. We then threaded the inside of each hole and screwed a 1/4" bolt into the stand leaving a 1/8" gap when we lined the kickstand back up correctly. The gap was to allow the weld to burn in for maximum stregnth.

Normally chrome pops off when cut or welded, however the Yamaha kickstands are really good stuff and is very hard to cut even with a band saw and the chrome does not pop off when welded so we welded it back with a stainless rod, dressed it a little with a dremel and buffed it out.

If you look really close at the close up picture of the stand, you can see where we made the weld.

I say we, I have a buddy who is pretty handy with metal and he actually did most of the work on the modificaton of the stand. Did I mention he rides a Harley?

I still have my stock stand, if anyone needs one cut down I will ask my buddy what he would charge and I could have him modify my extra stand and we could do a swap, I would only charge for his labor and postage and you send me your kickstand after you receive the shortened one. That way you will not be without a kickstand. I would have to have the money up front to pay my friend.

If you need any more infomation or better pictures, let me know.

Hi there! New to the group as just purchased a 2006 Venture. I am having it lowered in the front and rear. I am curious what you meant when you wrote "I took 3/4 out of my kickstand" ? Could you please explain - such as 3/4" from the top end - redrilling holes , etc. thx

It looks like he had a 3/4" section cut out, rewelded it and had it polished.

Dang Forrest, you ain't just pretty you are smart too. That is exactly what happened.