Took my 2000 out for the first "real" ride today.
New sneakers, windshield, cables lubed, new brakes, fluids, solo seat, saddle bags on her before we set out.
Not a bad scooter, kinda fun to ride, its got a after market exhaust on, a bit LOUD for my tastes, dunno if I can spend the day on it cuz of the noise.
The front forks need a bit more preload to stiffen it up, they take a bounce nice.
The rear shock. spring rate suck!
I had zipped it down to 5 preload when I was fooling @ with it, but it handled crappy, so up to 7 and it still is soft, soft, soft. (hell, I'm only 165#, I should be in the middle of the setting).
The compression is so-so, rebound a bit fast.
So, the rear shock needs attention.
Can this be re-built?
Has anyone ever tried it?
A heavier oil and a stiffer spring rate would hold the rear up, make it handle better, then a bit more preload in the front forks, or a stiffer spring.........
Ideas of what I should do???
Joe
Have the fun of owning a bike is the doing mods on it!
you can add a longer spacer in the forks, I replaced mine with progressive fork springs and changed the spacer... does really well.
I'm not sure the mono-shock can be modified. Progressive has a 420 monoshock replacement. Have a look in the accessories section of1 the web site.
I put progressive suspension springs in my 1500, and the difference is beyond amazing. It cost like $80 for the springs, and I had a chance to really clean out the old fish oil, and make sure it was clean inside. Fork seals, and springs...I made a fork oil level gauge from a wooden dowel, and used synthetic Dexron ATF for fork oil. I know what it says in the manual, but I've been using Dex in forks since I got my first hydraulic fork, on my '49 pan.
ATF is 7 wt oil, it has alot of detergrent in it also, so it'll clean the forks out.
ATF will foam, but most fork oils won't.
I will mix weight oils, to try different settings, like 15 wt and 10 to lighten the action.
I have used 30 wt motor oil in old MX forks!
On my ATK off road bike, I could tell when the fork oil started to break down.
I was wondering if I could make up a ring "spacer" to bump up the preload on the spring.
I'm at the $$ point with this "project", so I dunno if I wanna drop another $400 into just the rear shock to work better. So far I'm inot it for over $1500 I KNOW I'll never get outta it if I send it down the road.
I'm gonna wait til winter and see where I'm at.
Joe
Synthetic Dex doesn't foam, and the 7 weight gives me the compression compliance I was looking for. The fork action was so stiff it actually loosened the rivets holding the front fender twice in about 10,000 miles... Moto Guzzi recommends Dex in their forks, and I've never had a problem with it causing rapid bushing wear because it never changes viscosity with heat, and it doesn't have the friction modifiers in it that the other fluids have. I had it in my 1980 TourGlide for 200,000 miles and never had to put in fork seals...changed it every 20,000 miles, and it was always clean coming out. The spacers are made of thin pipe, like exhaust pipe, and are really easy to get out, no unscrewing anything, just block up the front, and pop off the plastic caps. Push down in the center of the steel cap under neath, and remove the earless snap ring, the cap will come right out. no need to remove the forks, or anything fancy. Progressive supplies a piece of PVC pipe to cut to length for their preload spacer. My front end was very stiff, but yours is soft? Seems like there is a consistency problem with the build of there forks....
yeah, I have to say it "wallows" and I'm sure the preload is too light, as the riders sag has to be more than 1/4 of the total suspension travel.
I just got it like last week, and I beleive I'm the 3rd owner?, so who knows what was done to it in the last 11 years.
Usually I start with the forks, but the rear shock is the sore spot on this baby.
Maybe I should switch to light beer and loose a few pounds................. Naaaa, stiffer springs! 8)
Joe