Once the suspension is all put back together, i am excited to ride, feel how it handles on a straight line
BHPian Dhruv Shetty recently shared this with other enthusiasts:
Front suspension replaced with a small unplanned upgrade.
Continuing from the previous update, a plan was put in place, first diagnose the front suspension and confirm if the suspension can be saved or not, once this is sorted then move on to the annoying idle issue.
First in line, the suspension was diagnosed after some good testing and came to the conclusion that, the left outer tube had bad cut in side where the seal sits and both the inner tubes had deep scratches and pitting on the surface which was causing the leaks, it started with sweating 2 years back, which lead to oil constantly leaking from the forks. So went ahead and put an order for a completely new set of front forks, we thought the parts will arrive in 15 days or so, but surprisingly it a full 3 months for 95 percent of the parts to arrive, the springs and spacer was taking forever, when I returned on a short vacation in June, I went to a few KTM SVC to do some asking, they said minimum of 15 days is needed, my fuse just blew, I’m like “ I don’t have time, I’ll just go ahead and order some good aftermarket springs”, and luckily the YSS springs were readily available and for the spacer, Zain (owner of Zenngine) had a nice idea, let’s cut open the old shocks and reuse the old spacers, went ahead with this idea, instead of waiting for eternity, as I have a thousand kilometre trip with Tali in December and I do not want a repeat of last time. The delay in getting the springs turned out good in a way, got an upgrade and later whenever I start doing track days, ill upgrade the front and rear to a full adjustable set-up.
Since February the hasn’t been used at all, almost 5 months it has been idle, before being bought to the shop, battery had been charged up fully, so the electronics don’t get stressed out.
Bike up in the paddock
Stock v/s upgraded springs
The one on the left is the stock and one on the right is the YSS springs.
All the new components in one frame
The spacer which was removed by cutting open the old forks
Once the suspension is all put back together, i am excited to ride, feel how it handles on a straight line, braking, cornering and other things. As these springs are stiffer than the stock ones, we will have to experiment with the fork oil, to balance out the stiffness, so it becomes bearable to ride normally and does not compromise the ride quality and stability in corners and in a straight line.
Next in line is to figure out the Idling tantrums the bike is throwing since the rebuild or should i say pre engine rebuild, it was present before the rebuild but not to prominent.
Until the next time when i get more updates on the bike.
Cheers,
Dhruv Shetty.
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