Hey all,
I thought I'd post up my experiences with replacing a stock blue-spring shock with a yellow-spring unit from an early Mille.
Way back last year, I picked up a yellow-spring Mille shock from Forum member GazUK. After some to-ing and fro-ing, Falcopops picked up the shock from Gaz and shipped it over to Oz in his magical freight container of bits.
Where it sat until I could finally get around to picking it up. Then it sat in my store room until I could catch up with FalcoPops and organise to get it installed. I had asked if he wanted help putting all the bling-bits back onto his Falco, but he's in the throws of taking his bike apart and giving it a good going over before putting it back together again. (You have about 6 months, FalcoPops, then the warmer weather will be here in force and you'll be wanting to get out and about riding!)
We got the bike jacked up on piles of bricks and some axle-stands. It's amazing what you can do when you need to get something done in a hurry. After that, it was a matter of 3 bolts and the blue-spring shock came out easily enough.
I should clean the thing up, as it's half-covered in old chain lube and other sticky black muck.
(If anyone wants the old blue one, drop me a PM and it's all yours!)
As we examined the yellow-spring unit, we found that one of the linkage plates had a crack in it. It looked like the corner of the plate had taken a big hit at some stage, and it had caused the alloy to split. Well, we couldn't do anything with that, and whilst it may have been OK, I didn't want to go tarmac-surfing, and FalcoPops was pretty determined that the plate didn't go onto my bike. Which is fair enough - I'd have done the same for him.
After searching though his pile of bits and pieces, FalcoPops generously gave me the linkage plates from his yellow-spring shock. Thanks, mate. I owe you a drink or several, along with a new set of linkages.
Because of the compression reservoir (or whatever that big cylinder thing is) the shock had to be inserted from the top, as it won't fit up though the bottom. It took a bit of wriggling around and a couple of rude words, but it went straight in. Easy!
Even getting the bolts lined up and torqued correctly was easy. (Oh, how naive we can be - for Murphy was peering through the windows just waiting until he could leap in and make his presence felt.)
Getting the static and dynamic sag measured took a while, and a few sessions of "on the axle stand", measure it, back on the stand, loosen off the preload, back up on the stand again before we got it right.
Thankfully the front sag was perfect - there was no need to change anything!
And Murphy made his entrance.
The stock Falco sidestand was far too short, so the bike leaned too far over. I don't think it was going to fall over, but I haven't seen a bike leaning that far over. Not a good situation to be in.
I don't know how he did it, but FalcoPops dug up an RSV sidestand from his seemingly endless pile of bits & pieces. (OK, FalcoPops, just how did you manage to accumulate so much stuff? And then manage to get it into the country?
)The stand fits like it was made for it, and the bike leans over exactly the right amount - a bit further than the stock stand (with the blue shock), but not as far over as it had earlier.
Whilst FalcoPops popped inside for a moment, I took the bike out for a quick test ride. I hope I didn't annoy the neighbours too much. The SL-Carbon cans can be a bit loud at times... The bike feels great. A lot different, but much better.
I didn't pay much attention to how it handled on the way home, as I was in a bit of a hurry. (Shame! shame! shame!)
however, a couple of days later I had the chance to get out and have a ride of a reasonable length.
I took the bike out for a spin down to Frankston and back - about 100km or so by the time I got home and I have to say that it handles brilliantly.
It feels a lot more 'stuck to the road', it turns in faster and easier now. If I hit a dip or a bump whilst leaned over it doesn't wallow and shake around like it used to. I don't think I need to fiddle with the settings much more.
I tried doing a lot of 'squiggles' (what the racers do to warm their tyres up) and the difference between the old blue shock and the yellow one is just astounding.
I know that some forum users believe in getting the stock blue-spring unit tuned to suit, and I think that this approach is a good one. Especially if you aren't that demanding in your riding style. For me, the upgrade to the yellow-spring unit is the best change I've made to the bike.
