Small upgrade on shocks

[Sofatester]

Hi there.

Some months ago, I talked about a small upgrade on the shocks. Now I finished that work (nearly). I was going after a better response behaviour of the shocks, that means I wanted to achieve a lower breakaway torque of the shock.

My plan was to use a package of a thin axial washer , an axial needle bearing and a thick axial bearing washer between the spring and the spring plate. I found appropriate parts within the INA sortiment. (AS, AXK and LS series).

This also meant constructing and machining (and finally hard-anodyzing) new spring plates for the shock. I used solid blocks of Alu 7075-T6 for that.

Well, in my eyes it was a full success. But critisizing myself, it was too much effort for a slight improvement. Having said that, I'm quite confident with the work.
Here are some of today's pics of the result :

[roger albert]

Looks nice. And you have the same scale I use for balancing pistons.

[Droptarotter]

Very nice work, Sofa.

Part of the enjoyment of owning a motorcycle is doing these time consuming projects.

Good job!

Cheers

[Sofatester]

Thanks.

Well, next winter I'll be working on the next upgrade:

Changing the front shock from that simple emulsion type to a gas shock with external reservoir (connected with a hose) and adjustment of the pressure damping.

Besides:
While working on that project the first spring plate I made fits only the stock rear Öhlins shock.

I was so stupid to measure the stock Öhlins part first instead of the stock wilbers part. Now this item is a leftover.

That left-over part is also hard-anodyzed, color is the same as on the other parts in the pics, it's "titan-like" (which means a "pale" mixture between silver and gold, looking pretty "technical")
You may see this part in the first pic. it's above the shock in the top, right next to the scale.

If anybody is interested........ a pm is welcome.

@Roger: This scale and the cellar is owned by a friend of mine and I'm lucky enough to be allowed to work there and use his equipment (and his help when needed).

[roger albert]

Do you have pix of the Öhlins spring mount?

I don't really have anything that looks cool like that anymore.
All my stuff is pretty much internal; shims and needles and what not.
And even though they are hard-parts, they're really more analogous to software (or at least firmware) Everybody sees the PC or Tablet or Smartphone, but not the software inside.
Same with shocks. You need a stopwatch, or at least a pretty good eye at reading tire tread, to know anything has changed. I kinda miss play with cool billet bits, but there are plenty of people much better at that than me, Sofatester included, so I stick to what I (kinda) know.

Anyway, again, very cool. A 'simple' shock mount like that trumps a truckload of bolt-on parts.

keep doing it, and keep sharing it.

[shreddr]

you do nice work my friend! is the weather getting better over there? it was almost 60 here today in NJ, lots of gravel still though, but I will be riding soon enough!

[Sofatester]

Hi there,

@Jeff: Temperature here is between +2°C and +9°C. Yesterday we had the bluest sky one can imagine and a big fat sun up above.
Lotsa bikes on the roads, seems hiberniation is over. Hope you're fine, too.

@ roger: that spring plate for the stock öhlins rear shock is seen in the first pic above.
It's the one right next to the scale. To use it together with the stock Öhlins shock you'll need a thin axial washer (AS) a thick axial bearing washer (LS) and an axial needle bearing (AXK), these parts altogether will cost ~20-25€.
Thank you very much for your comments. They are quite encouraging.

[Sofatester]

....... one more pic with text; this pic shows the spring mount for the front wilbers shock
the leftover part fitting the stock öhlins shock looks quite the same (only the measurements are a bit different)