Rear Suspension Problem (I Think)

[thunderbolt]

Looks like the shock wasn't originally made for fitting to the firestorm - the spacing washers are a giveaway if I'm not mistaken. Did you take the rear wheel out?

With a new new shock mount you might want to try getting slightly thicker spacing washers (measuring precisely) or get an engineering shop to knock you up some spacers so when torqued up won't cause the shock mounting sidearms to distort.

What's the length from centre of mounting eyes? (considering 345-347mm is ideal range)

Thanks Wicky for the reply.

The center to centre eye measurement is 350mm -- is that OK. What difference does it make - just ride height.

Also the swingarm has what appears to be a dent on the inside of the drive side alloy arm. See Pictures below. Is this damage and does it matter or is the arm manufactured this way for some reason?

[AMCQ46]

swingarm dent is normal, that is how they are fabricated.

wicky is correct, the top mount and the washers to space it out are a bit of a bodge job and it looks like it is pulling the U shaped bracket our of shape when you see it against the red square Wicky drew on top of the photos. I would take that apart and see if teh shock top bearing is OK or if it is part of the source of the squeek.

a hydraulic preload adjuster is a great think as it allows you to easily adjust the sag without tools so if you have a pillion or luggage you can wind on some extra preload to compensate.
I set mine so with the preload fully removed it is at the correct static Sag setting for solo work, then I add preload when I have a pillion, then I go back to fully out when I loose the pillion.

Remote damping reservoir is something that is on race shocks and it houses extra oil and the compression damping adjsutment

[thunderbolt]

Thanks AMcQ,

A bit relieved about the dent in the swingarm not being an issue. I can go ahead and clean it all up now and see where I stand with the top bracket modification.

Thanks again everyone.

[thunderbolt]

I seem to have solved my problem with the top bracket interferring with the top of the shock by having the center of the bracket milled in a concave shape to resemble the same curve on the top of the shock. See below:



I have yet to reassemble it all though as I am waiting on one of the bearings for the rear link that was difficult to source here in Australia.

This way I was able to remove metal to give the clearance required without weakening the whole "U" shaped bracket. If I had removed metal all the way across which would have been much easier it would have weakened the whole setup.

[thunderbolt]

Just a final post to close off this subject/project. Cleaned up everything, swingarm, springs, etc. fitted new needle rollers to the dog bone and shock link, replaced all the spacers and bolts. All back together now. It's had a couple of decent runs with a lot of corners and bumps and everything performing as it should. The original suspension noise which I complained about at the start of the thread has gone.

Everything seems ok - operating as it should.

Thanks for ALL the help everyone.