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.