Chuey wrote:I left off the most important part about rear shocks. I always have the springs powdercoated in my favorite accent color, red. They feel best when they have your favorite custom color.
Chuey
Your holdin back on important info there. Stuff always works better when you like the looks of it.
Ikon parts fit Konis and I have found them to be of higher quality. Price for parts is good too. You can buy decent Konis on e-bay and rebuild them cheaply. Geof at Ikon can supply the right parts. New 7610-1298 Ikons are reasonable too.
Teo
Konis did not bottom out too often, but seemed to stand up to serious hammering without leaking or breaking, kind of important when spares are at least 2 weeks away.
Charles
Replica 1070 R90/S (based on 82 RT)
1975 R90/6
Chuey wrote:I left off the most important part about rear shocks. I always have the springs powdercoated in my favorite accent color, red. They feel best when they have your favorite custom color.
I have put around 45,000 miles on my chrome (last series) koni shocks...................If and when, I purchase another airhead, and need to replace the shocks................either rebuilt koni or new ikon shocks will get my nod................I would LOVE a set of either ohlins or works, however, I still have another year of 'child support" for my 22 year old and a four year old..............MONEY IS TIGHT!
Your experiences and feelings may differ.
Ride Fast and Safe!
spo
Koni shocks have a lifetime warranty. But, Koni is out of the motorcycle shock
business. I sent an email to Koni customer service regarding warranty service on
motorcycle shocks now that they no longer sell them.
Their current policy is to repair motorcycle shocks under warranty or refund the purchase
price.
I changed fork oil last night to 7 wt. My ride to work this AM was much improved. Hopefully at lunch time I'll be able to get to some rougher roads to see how much better thing work.
As I said earlier, I may have been blameing my new shocks for the fact that my forks where too stiff. That is the problem with changing too many things at once........ I just never learn.
Garnet wrote:I changed fork oil last night to 7 wt. My ride to work this AM was much improved. Hopefully at lunch time I'll be able to get to some rougher roads to see how much better thing work.
As I said earlier, I may have been blameing my new shocks for the fact that my forks where too stiff. That is the problem with changing too many things at once........ I just never learn.
I had a chance yesterday to get onto a variety of roads sufaces and do some scientific testing.
I had the rear preload too high. With the heavy fork oil it felt as though the rear was bottoming when in fact it was lack of compliance on the front. Now with proper fork oil I was able to feel that the back was too harsh.
I was able to push the rubber bump stops down to the bottom of the shocks. I then went for a ride and found I was only useing about half of the travel of the shock as the bump stops where in the middle of the piston. I kept reducing spring preload till I finally bottomed out on a real nasty dip. I then increased it one notch and did the same dip again and had about a quarter on an inch of travel left.
The ride is much improved now. The progresivly wound springs are quite good, as it takes a pretty serious whooped dee do to actually bottom out, with reasonable compiance over average stuff. I am now much happier with my bargain shocks.
Next I need to do more work on the forks. This bike apears to have had a frame mount fairing at one time. I believe that it may have heavy duty fork springs or perhaps they have been preloaded. Before I make anymore changes to them I will do the same travel test on them. I'll lift up a gaitor and put a zap strap around the fork tube and then check to see how much of the front that I'm useing.
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