BraveG
Pack Dog
Hullo chaps,
I have been slowly servicing my recently purchased R50/5 and having focused on getting it running smoothly which it is now doing, I decided to put my attention to getting it as safe as possible which brings me to the matter of the forks.
Having ridden it around the block a few hundred times now, (keeping close to pushing home distance as I have had to do a few times) I first noticed the shocks were really quite shit. Taking it off the centre stand it made a great big huffing sound out of the shocks and the whole bike would drop down dramatically and the same would happen by putting on front brakes, lots of huffing and puffing, major dip. So I finally got round to doing a service on them today and first thing I realized was that the fork caps up above the triple tree were finger loose, as in I could turn them by hand. So i figured that was a good reason for the lack of pressure, and while I was at it, I drained the old oil, put in some new oil (265cc as the manual states) and buttoned them all up good and tight.
Then testing the shocks, they definitely felt better, but there is still a hell of a lot of travel on them and much fuss and huffing every time front brakes are applied. I was hoping for a stiffer ride and a better result, so being a new airhead owner, I thought I would ask if this is a normal airhead fork issue/quirk or if I need new springs, damping etc?
Are there any improvements/conversions/upgrades I can make that would keep the bike looking authentic but performing better?
Thanks
G
I have been slowly servicing my recently purchased R50/5 and having focused on getting it running smoothly which it is now doing, I decided to put my attention to getting it as safe as possible which brings me to the matter of the forks.
Having ridden it around the block a few hundred times now, (keeping close to pushing home distance as I have had to do a few times) I first noticed the shocks were really quite shit. Taking it off the centre stand it made a great big huffing sound out of the shocks and the whole bike would drop down dramatically and the same would happen by putting on front brakes, lots of huffing and puffing, major dip. So I finally got round to doing a service on them today and first thing I realized was that the fork caps up above the triple tree were finger loose, as in I could turn them by hand. So i figured that was a good reason for the lack of pressure, and while I was at it, I drained the old oil, put in some new oil (265cc as the manual states) and buttoned them all up good and tight.
Then testing the shocks, they definitely felt better, but there is still a hell of a lot of travel on them and much fuss and huffing every time front brakes are applied. I was hoping for a stiffer ride and a better result, so being a new airhead owner, I thought I would ask if this is a normal airhead fork issue/quirk or if I need new springs, damping etc?
Are there any improvements/conversions/upgrades I can make that would keep the bike looking authentic but performing better?
Thanks
G
