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How to make a 30 minute shock swap ...


RC4G

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take 3 frickin hours.

OK, I've swapped shocks so many times on my RC51 I can do it blind folded so when my brand new Ohlins shock finally arrived for the XX (X-Mas present from the Mrs.) I was more than confident that I could knock it out in 30 minutes (I thought I already had a shim from a previous suspension project on the NC30). I even gave myself a little fudge factor of an additional 30 minutes and promptly told the Mrs. I would be done in an hour so we could go knock out some errands before dinner.

Wrong.

First I wasted at least 45 minutes when I changed my mind and decided to remove the shock from the top after initially starting out removing the lower linkage in preparation from removing it from the bottom.

Then lost another 30 minutes rummaging around in my race spares looking for the 5mm shim I KNEW I had somewhere. Road trip to the local Ace hardware store cost another 20 minutes to pick up 4 stainless 3/8" ID 1.5" fender washers.

So I've got the shock swapped out and everything tightened back up and I'm putting the undertray back in and discovered much to my chagrin that the coolant reservoir has to be loose from the top shock bolt to fit the plastic tab on the reservoir neck into the corresponding notch in the battery box.

FARK ... FARK .... FARK... (wife peeks out in the garage, gives me the obligatory "One hour? Right." expression and goes back inside)

I absolutely refused to pull the tray and wiring back apart so I wasted another 30 minutes pushing, prying and cussing the tab into place.

Most likely, 5 minutes of RTFM would have have eliminated all this grief but I'm a manly-man and much prefer long strings of explicatives while spinning wrenches on my two-wheeled transportation.

No impressions of the rear shock and shim yet as I discovered I need a new rear tire as well. Saw a brand new set of Pirelli Angel ST's at my local shop that the mags are writing good reviews about so I'll get a new rear tire mounted up tomorrow.

Next weekend I'm installing the new Ohlins fork springs and 7.5wt.

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