New shock day!

Who doesn't love a shiny new shock? I ordered this at the end of March and it has arrived from the UK today. Looking forward to skinning my knuckles this evening. Accessibility on the bike looks decent with the tank rear raised and hopefully much, much easier than fitting the shock to my VTEC. Having a centrestand will also pay off I think.

 

I'd have to say the 1200 was one of the easier shock swap jobs that I have done, the only downside being that to get the rear of the fuel tank raised (where the clevis bolt is located) I had to pull the fairing and tank sides off, which would be slow going except I've done it a few hundred times now...With the muffler removed there was great access to the linkage bolts and none were corroded althought the bearing sleeves were a bit rusty outside of the seals. Unlike the 5th and 6th gens, the muffler link pipe passes right under the linkage so with the muffler removed, there is really easy access to the bottom of the shock tunnel. All up the work took about an hour and I didn't take any skin off my knuckles. I took the opportunity to clean parts and regrease the needle bearings, but otherwise it was bolts out, shock out, new shock in and bolts back. I didn't even take the wheel off. I'm looking forward to a test ride this weekend.


The old shock was predictably crusty, surface corrosion from the bike's past life (where it sat unused in a salt-spray location for 3 years) was pretty ugly. The tinkerer in me wonders whether the hydraulic adjuster from the stock shop could be repurposed onto the Nitron? However access to the adjuster on the Nitron is very good and I don't tinker with preload much so no real benefit to be had.

 

Nice!! I love new shocks. Very cool.

I have a Nitron on one of my Hawks and one in a box for my next VFR build. They are pretty tasty.

 

My lovely yellow VFR800 already has a lovely Nitron R3 shock (courtesy of the PO) and my former ST1300 had a similar shock to the one I've just bought, but with the hydraulic preload adjuster. I was pleasantly surprised by the Nitron pricing (USD610 delivered), just a little more than an equivalent YSS.

 

I have now covered about 500km since installing the new shock. All I can say is that I thought the old shock was all right (aside from being pretty crusty) but the new shock has shown what a crude piece of hardware it was. The additional plushness of the Nitron was apparent from the first time I pulled out of my driveway; probably a result of a more weight-appropriate spring rate and a bit less preload to get the ride height correct, as well as better quality components. I did have a thought about moving the preload adjuster but the stock KYB shock is a much smaller diameter than the Nitron.

I've also been messing around with the forks, a long process that involved a lot of disassembly and assembly of the front end. As stock the fork springs are pretty limp and the compression damping is firm to offset that but the forks were still quite easy to bottom. I happened to have surplus 1.0kg/mm springs to hand, along with compression Gold Valves from my ST1300, plus some DMR rebound valves. That sounded like a good concoction but the compression Gold Valves were pre-drilled with 1.3mm bleeds and no matter what I did, these gave poor support under braking, making the fork very dive-prone and easy to bottom and start the ABS cycling.

I then got some DMR compression valves, Jamie supplied these with no fixed bleed, and I did not like the feel of these much, the fork was effectively solid over little imperfections which was pretty tiring, although they were good on big fast hits. Jamie advised a minor revalve to correct that but I confess I did not believe him, and opted instead to drill a 0.8mm bleed into the valves, which unfortunately made them a bit too dive-prone again. This was irreversible, and perhaps a poor choice on my part, but its my money... So I am back to the stock compression valves, along with the DMR rebounds, and while not perfect I think it is a reasonable compromise between braking support and bump absorption, so I think I will keep things as they are...for now.

Yesterday I took a very pleasant 250km run in the winter sunshine, apart from a stiff cold southerly headwind it was a lovely ride, and reminded me why I enjoy the 1200 so much. I bought this bike as an insurance write-off and it is very satisfying to ride knowing the work that I have put into returning it to mechanically near-new has paid off.

 

I had another opportunity for a mid-winter ride yesterday, after a foggy start the sun came out and dried most of the dew from the roads so I headed off for a very pleasant 280km run. My hometown of Auckland sits right at the narrowest point of the North Island so my usual first decision is "north or south?", today it was northwards as the rain radar was showing a bit of rain to the south. Turned out to be a sound choice. After about 40km of motorway I took Highway 16 which veers to the west and ultimately sort of follows the Kaipara Harbour edge, this is a fun but bumpy and very scenic route which joins back to Highway 1 in Wellsford. I crossed over that and headed east to the other coast at Leigh, which is very pitcuresque as it looks out over the Hauraki Gulf with many islands. Then we headed back through bustling Matakana and Warkworth and down Woodcocks Rd ,which is a two-wheeled favourite with many challenging bends and one-lane bridges bringing me back around to Highway 16 for the return home. Earl ran like a watch, super solid, pretty agile on near new Road6 tyres, and very relaxing to ride.

 

OK...I know I said I would leave the forks alone, but I just couldn't help myself, and went back to Brook Suspension and hit the buy-now on some swanky K-tech fork parts. Don't tell Mrs Smith! I will disassemble these assemblies and measure the parts before they make their way into my forks. Very interested to see how they will compare with the other bits that I have been playing with.

The K-techs are a little different to the Gold Valves being supplied as assemblies, and the rebound part includes a new control needle, whereas the Gold Valves are supplied as a generic bag of bits, plus some assembly instruction.

If you've not delved into the innards of a KYB USD fork, the chunky bits on the outside screw into the bottom of the cartridge tube and hold the valve assembly, and the parts in the middle with the thick piston bands are the rebound pistons which attach to the damper rod and race up and down in the cartridge as you hit bumps/pull wheelies etc. The wavy washers are the springs that hold the check valves shut, and you can see the shim stacks on the opposite side of the valve body.

 

Eye ye ye. Gonna be good!

But... I'm telling! I'm telling!

Unless you put additional pressure on sixdog about the RC.

 

I did a trial assembly last night, I was slightly concerned about how I was going to unscrew the old rebound assembly from the damper shaft but it turned out that locking two fork cap locknuts together onto the upper thread gave me plenty of leverage. So I have assembled one cartridge (in about 15 minutes!) and will move onto the next one tonight then throw them into the bike. But first this curious cat has to disassemble the assemblies and find out what make a K-tech tick. Stay tuned (if you are interested).

 

I took a close look at the K-tech fork valves last night, including recording the shim stacks and the port sizes. If anyone was interested, the valves are much more of an Ohlins-style with restrictive ports than Racetech where the porting is as large as is feasible. The K-tech compression piston has four x 1.54mm ports (as near as I can measure with callipers) vs the stock piston three x 1.87mm, there is also no bleed port present.


The rebound piston has 4 x 2.35mm ports vs stock at 3 x 1.75mm. The shim stacks look stiffer on the K-tech as well. This will be an interesting process and I hope I am happy with the outcome.

 

I had a couple of rides over the weekend as the weather and other duties allowed. Unfortunately my take on the K-tech parts is not that positive as supplied, my sense is they might be good on a smooth race track but were pretty sketchy on the bumps of Woodcocks Rd, feeding much too much bump energy into the chassis by way of excessive high speed compression damping. I have sent a "please advise" request to Brook Suspension and will see where that leads, at this point my hybrid OEM compression and DMr rebound is probably my preference but as a incurable suspension fiddler, I will persevere....I also learned that the stock 11mm fork cap height (which sets the number of rebound needle clicks available) needs to be a few mm higher with the K-tech parts as it appears the needles are longer or sit higher.

 

Brook Suspension have left me hanging regarding advice, which is disappointing. I have pulled a couple of shims out of the compression stack and it is better, but not quite what I am after. I will try a few more rides before the next change but I am inclined to go back to the stock compression valve, maybe with one less shim, and the DMR rebound stack.

In other news, I decided to send my main fairings out to be repainted at a local painter, and could not be happier with the colour match and finish, all for a reasonable USD380. The service was so good that I will get them to refinish the top of the fuel tank which is suffering from clear-coat cancer. I'd say that the restoration of the 1200 is pretty much finished, here are some before and after shots.

 

That does sound like a bargain on the cost of repainting your fairings.
It looks great, Terry.

 

That design has, like most Hondas, aged very very well.