Maintenance & Technical > KX500 Original

Suspension help

<< < (3/4) > >>

alan:
Bearing loading is usually not and adjustment!  Correct me if I am wrong?

Alan

KXcam22:
Hughes,
  A couple of more things that might work. First, what tire are you running?  Also, can you run your bar clamps forward like the newer KX.  Turning the bar clamp around so the offset is forward moves the bars (and the riders weight) forward 1/2". It helped a lot on mine.  My 92 was also very particular to tire type when around ruts.  Took me 3 tries to get a front tire that did what I wanted.  Before that ruts were death.  Do your forks feel stiff? I am not familiar with the forks on your bike but owned a CR500 of the same year (Showa vs your Kayaba). With most cartridge forks, any oil stiffer than 10wt makes them work poorly.  Not sure what is recommended but the 15wt sounds like it might be too thick especially with the .46 springs.  It might be that the forks don't settle down in the travel quick enough in the corners.  Just some ideas to help. You have enough size and weight that the bike should go exactly where you point it and rail the corners. Cam.

hughes:

--- Quote from: alan on March 29, 2006, 06:28:12 AM ---Bearing loading is usually not and adjustment!  Correct me if I am wrong?

Alan

--- End quote ---

You can tighten the nut on the top bearing to load them both. It is supposed to cut down on head shake. I know my bike feels better with this adjustment. You can set it by removing the front number plate. Tie some fishing line around the upper fork tube and connect a small fish scale to the other end. It should take about 4-6 lbs to pull the front end to one side(BIKE ON A STAND AND FRONT TIRE OFF THE GROUND). I got that out of magazine they were going over on how to set up a bike.

hughes:

--- Quote from: KXcam22 on March 29, 2006, 07:24:48 AM ---Hughes,
  A couple of more things that might work. First, what tire are you running?  Also, can you run your bar clamps forward like the newer KX.  Turning the bar clamp around so the offset is forward moves the bars (and the riders weight) forward 1/2". It helped a lot on mine.  My 92 was also very particular to tire type when around ruts.  Took me 3 tries to get a front tire that did what I wanted.  Before that ruts were death.  Do your forks feel stiff? I am not familiar with the forks on your bike but owned a CR500 of the same year (Showa vs your Kayaba). With most cartridge forks, any oil stiffer than 10wt makes them work poorly.  Not sure what is recommended but the 15wt sounds like it might be too thick especially with the .46 springs.  It might be that the forks don't settle down in the travel quick enough in the corners.  Just some ideas to help. You have enough size and weight that the bike should go exactly where you point it and rail the corners. Cam.

--- End quote ---

I'm running the Maxxis IT'S. I have the bar clamps turned around. The manual calls for 5wt. but the valving with the damping rod have some wear and it seemed that the 5wt. would let the fork slam through the stroke or travel. I went to 15wt. because the front end did not bottom out over jumps. Not big jumps. I think you are right about the wt oil I will try 10wt. 5 just flows to fast throught the valving. The forks got stiffer from 5wt. to 10wt. to 15wt. oil. I only ran the 10wt. oil for one ride and it was on an old school motocross track. Thanks guy's. I hope here in a week or so I can report back.

hughes:
Update. I moved the forks up 5 more mms (15mm total) and changed to 5wt. fork oil and new bar cones WOW  :-o :-o. My bike handle great. Alot easyier to turn in the tight stuff and the front tire stayed where I wanted it to. I didn't get to push it to hard due a fall 30 mins after we started riding. Sprain my right wrist and dislocated my tumb. I rode 4 more hours but didn't push to hard but I rode enough that I could tell a big differance in my bikes handling. Thanks guy for all the input.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page