The Secret Life of Suspension

All the components of your suspension, including pistons, valves and seals, are designed to last practically forever. What can make it fail is often nothing more than plain old dirt and contaminated oil. The standard oil is only just acceptable and with steel and aluminium working together inside the shock it quickly produces a fine black compound, which suspends itself in the oil, then clogs seals, plugs up orifices, and bonds shims together. The result is a system of reciprocating parts that merely push and suck oil from one chamber to another with little control over the rise and fall of your rear wheel.
If left unattended the system will gradually grind itself away and eventually blow all over your rear suspension. A major bonus fortunately, is that if a shock is not left too long without servicing then it will not only perform better than new, it will last longer once that initial oil has been replaced.

Warning: If your shock loses its oil, get it fixed before your next ride because when a shock loses its oil the pressure inside the shocks gas bladder will remain. This can force the bladder into the sharp threaded section at the base of the reservoir and destroy it. Bladders are expensive.

Our rebuild service includes:
Dissasembly of the shock, cleaning and inspection of all seals, shims, hoses, bushes, damping adjusters. (Important: Many so called services neglect shim dissasembly and cleaning, which is critical)

Refill with the highest quality shock oil; reassemble unit, repressurise with fresh nitrogen and pressure check final assembly.

Any shock parts if needed are extra

Read this before you refit your forks and or shock

All clicker settings are referred to from the fully wound in (clockwise) position

Forks:
Compression (C) clicker or adjuster is usually at the base of the fork; sometimes covered by a rubber plug, just flick it out with a screwdriver. (Compression clicker is on top for SHOWA twin chamber forks)

Rebound (R) is the top clicker for all forks other than twin chamber forks

Clickers, check the clicker settings are at the suggested positions. If in doubt, 10C and 10R is a good place to start.

Triple clamps
Wipe the clamps out with a solvent, they must be clean and oil free. Use a 'Scotchbrite' pad if you need to remove any hard deposits. Feel the steering head bearings while you are at it - do they move freely?

Axle
Check the axle for any nicks or burrs. NEVER HIT YOUR AXLE WITH ANYTHING HARDER THAN BRASS OR PLASTIC. If your axle cannot centre in the axle foot, you will have a harsh feeling fork that you cannot remedy with clicker adjustment.

Install the forks and torque the triple clamps to manufacturers specification. Over tightening will cause binding in the upper tubes.

Set the fork projection through the top clamps to the stock position. If you have a projection preference and have not changed fork settings, set it to your previous figure.

Lubricate the axle with thin oil or WD40, run it through the feet and wheel bearings to ensure it is smooth.

Install the wheel and the axle, but leave the pinch bolts loose.

After all the other assembly, work is done, drop the bike off the stand, hold on the front brake and 'pump' the forks several times to centre the axle and the fork legs. Tighten the pinch bolts with the bike still sitting on the ground. THIS STEP IS CRITICAL.

Look through the tuning notes and go ride.

Shock:

Low speed compression (LSC) flat blade screwdriver fitting at the top of the shock.

High-speed compression (HSC) large red hex nut at the top of the shock, it moves independently of the low speed)

Rebound (R) the adjuster at the bottom of the shock

Clickers, again check they are in the suggested positions, if in doubt, 1 turn out HSC, 10 LSC, 10 R and are good places to start. Make sure the spring preload collars are loose so you can easily adjust the preload to the recommended specs on the last page of the tuning guide.

Move the swing arm up and down to check for binding in the linkages.

Fit the shock torque the bolts to specifications.

Again, look at the tuning notes and go ride!

On your first ride start riding carefully. If you have had a major change to your suspension settings your bike will react differently to obstacles and you may crash as a result.

Make your suspension do some of the work

Todays motorcycles are very good. Gone are the days of the owner having to finish the manufacturing. However, they are not perfect, they never can be. The nice folks who build your bike don't know you. They don't know if you weigh 60kg or 120kg. They don;t know if you ride SX or Natural terrain MX or enduros.

Getting your suspension dialled in for your riding style is one of your first priorities when you take your new bike out to the track. However, it is an ongoing process. What worked today might not suit the next track conditions you encounter next week. Therefore, you have to take on the role of test rider for yourself and learn to identify problem areas. Never stop testing and thinking about what your bike is doing. Here are some practical tips for making your bike as good as it can be, stock or modified.

Spring Rates

There is again no way a manufacturer can know what you weigh. The 'average' target weight is a 75kg rider. Therefore, if you have a MX or current technology enduro bike, chances are the spring rates will be close for you. Of course, you will need to check and adjust your sag to be sure.

There are some exceptions. If you ride in sand or mud a lot, you might want to go to heavier springs. Pro class riders on four strokes will go for stiffer rates, as will x-treme jumpers

Clickers

Often I will call a client on the Monday after a race to see how he (or she) went. Occasionally I am met with a response of "it was too soft" or "it was too stiff ." My next question is "What clicker position did you start out at and where did you end up? Did the adjustments you made help?"

"I DIDN'T TOUCH THEM, I LEFT THEM RIGHT WHERE YOU PUT THEM"

Anyone who knows a suspension tuner will realise how much this drives them nuts. Please adjust your clickers yourself. One adjustment at a time so you know what it is doing. Keep a note of where you started from, so if you get lost you can go back. Read your owners manual, it's full of good stuff. Here is some more information that may help for both revalved and standard suspension.

Problems and Solutions

If the forks feel harsh

1 Try winding the compression dampening out 2 clicks at a time

2 Check if the springs are the correct weight for you

How long has it been since the fork was totally disassembled and rebuilt? Fork internals do wear out, shims do bend, chamber valves bleed more than they were designed to. More than 25 hours on the fork and it's rebuild time, and that is not just an oil change.

3 Look at the bikes intended usage, are you trying to use a SX set-up for the bush?

The fork bottoms

1 Increase the compression dampening, go 2 clicks at a time

2 If that makes the suspension feel harsh and does not help the bottoming, try increasing the oil height 5-10mm at a time Don't go higher than your manual suggests.

3 Do you have the correct springs for your weight?

If you have headshake

1 Be sure the fork is not abnormally soft and doesn't bottom. If it is, go through the steps above.

2 Reduce the rebound dampening

3 Try sliding the forks down through the clamps

4 Check the steering head bearings, be sure there is a slight amount of preload on the bearings and they are well greased.

The front end knifes or oversteers

1 If the fork isn't bottoming, reduce the oil level and go up on the spring rate. This will raise the front end during braking

2 Try more rebound on the rear shock

3 Decrease the rear shock preload

4 If all else fails, try sliding the forks down in the clamps if they are not flush with the clamps already.

The bike does not want to turn

1 Try increasing the rear shock preload. Don't go under 15mm of static sag

2 Slide the forks up in the triple clamps 5mm

3 If the rear is not too stiff try increasing the rear compression dampening (low speed if you have a 2 way compression adjuster)

4 If you have no problem with headshake, try increasing the forks rebound dampening two clicks at a time.

5 If you have no problem with the fork bottoming, try decreasing the forks compression dampening 2 clicks at a time.

6 Are the forks centred in the axle, has this problem just occurred after removing and refitting the forks?

7 Getting desperate now! If possible, reduce the amount of fork spring preload, or go to a softer spring as a last resort. Some bikes are just slow steerers, call TEKNIK we will have a solution!

Rear end does not hook up

1 Recheck the rear suspension sag. Not enough preload can cause this

2 Reduce the rears rebound dampening, this allows the rear wheel to get back on the ground faster and increase traction

3 Check the rear axle position, if it has been moved all the way rearward, then shorten or replace the chain.

4 Recheck your HSC adjuster if the problem is more predominant on rocks and roots. Decrease (wind out) the HSC adjuster

5 Often hook up problems are dampening associated, a revalve might be in order.

Rear end kicks when braking

1 A common mistake is to increase the rear shock rebound dampening. Usually faster (reduced) rebound dampening is the cure. Have a friend stand next to the corner in the braking zone to see if the suspension extends when leaving the ground, so you can determine if the rebound is too fast or slow.

2 Check your static sag, too little will case the rear to kick.

3 Be sure the forks are not to soft and diving too much under brakes and 'unloading' the rear. Put a cable tie around the fork tubes to check travel under brakes.

If you can't take the whoops

1 Try increasing the rear compression dampening, especially hi speed if you have it.

2 Increase the rebound dampening but not so much that it 'packs' in repeated bumps

If the rear end bottoms

1 Increase compression dampening

2 Increase spring preload but don't go more than 5mm under the recommended rider sag for your model

3 Decrease rebound dampening

Any time you reach the outer limits of adjusting it's time to become suspicious. You might be mis-diagnosing the problem or the valving/spring rates might be wrong for your specific application. TEKNIK stock a wide range of Suspension Tech anti bottoming kits and valve bodies for forks and Eibach springs. Give us a call to discuss you specific requirements.