Feb 16, 2008 Upgrades, part 1 of 3
This series of upgrades all kind of go together. Rear suspension (new shocks), front suspension (rebuild the forks with a complete RaceTech kit) and dual-disc brake conversion (many new parts from Harley!). While I'm at it, I'm changing out the tires to Pirelli Sport Demon sport-bias tires. The OEM Dunlops suck. Had I thought more about it, I might have hunted down a pair of Buell wheels and used regular 17" sport bike radials. Maybe later. Maybe next year.
I started today with the intention of tearing the bike all the way down and doing everything at once. When I bought the tires they cut me a nice deal on mounting and balancing; half-price on the mounting and balancing, or one set free essentially, since I bought two sets of tires (one set for each bike). Hopefully I can beg time in my friend Keith's garage to do the other set on the big bike.
I tore the rims, shocks and forks off the bike and ran down to Cycle Gear in Bear, DE where I got the tires. Went and had lunch at Moe's while they did the tires. In and out in about 40 minutes. Not bad!
I came home and replaced the rear shocks and remounted the rear wheel. This pretty much completed the work on the rear end of the bike. Most of the time was spent reinstalling the muffler that I had to pull off to get the rear axle out. Booo! Hisss. That design sucks.
The rear suspension upgrade consists, really, of just two new shocks and the mounting hardware. I went with 13" Progressive 412HD shocks in powder-coated black gloss. The stock shocks were chrome and pretty twiggy. These new, beefier black shocks look pretty nice and, more importantly, provide a better spring rate and better damping. Aesthetically, they go in line with the black-n-silver look better than the chrome ones did, I think.
Since I'm still waiting on one part for the brake & fork work (right side slider), I opted to not do any more of the brake work other than mounting up the disc to the rim.
Since the forks go on and off this bike in all of about 12 seconds, I remounted the forks and reinstalled the front wheel. I'll hold off on the rest of the work until the fork slider is here. That way I don't have to leave the bike down for any longer than it has to be. I'm having too much fun riding the darned thing to let it sit.
So, that's it for the time being. More to follow.
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