Following morti's recommendation I decided to go with the Blackbird shock to avoid the need to swap springs with my shucked out original. The BB shock is about 3+mm longer than stock, and since I'm "inseam challenged" I really didn't want to raise the rear of the bike plus have to go to a longer side stand. The shock arrived on a rainy day, perfect for a nice shop project so I decided to "shorten" it by making an offset top bushing.
After pressing out the original steel and rubber top bushing I turned a piece of Delrin to a matching 22mm diameter. I then switched to a four jaw lathe chuck and adjusted it to offset the material 3mm off center to drill a hole for a new steel collar. The new collar is smaller OD than the original, allowing more offset.
I cut off the Delrin bushing slightly shorter than the steel collar so the mounting bolt would pinch against the collar, not the Delrin.
To make sure the Delrin bushing could not rotate in the shock eye I threaded a socket set screw through the top of the shock eye and slightly into the Delrin.
From this angle it looks like the shock body interferes with the frame bracket, but it actually has adequate clearance.
Lastly I had to grind a small notch in the lower frame bracket to clear the damping adjuster screw.
It's raining again today so I have not ridden the bike yet, but by bouncing up and down on the passenger pegs my "butt dyno" tells me it feels very good. The rear is maybe 1/4" higher but the stock side stand still works. In the future I will go from the current 140/80 rear tire to the stock 140/70 which will reduce the lean angle.
-Bill
