THE LATEST ON THE BMW R1200GS/GSA LC SUSPENSION FIXES - WHY WE ARE THE BEST!!!

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BlingKing

Race Dog
Joined
Jan 25, 2010
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Location
27B River Road, Rivonia, Gauteng 2128
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BMW R1200GS
This precis explains what has developed with the repairs of the LC shocks.

Why is it a thing - because as sad as it is to say for me whose blood is Bavarian Blue - the shocks on the GS LC are given to failure when subject to rigorous S.A. conditions. It is what it it is, fortunately at Bling King we have devoted ourselves at being the best and the best trained in the repair of the ZF/Sachs Shocks in the LC GS/A.
For pricing contact your local workshop or Motorrad Dealer, if they do not utilize us, tell them that they have to.
Or else contact us direct on 082 450 8878 or [email protected]

Bling King Motorcycles & Suspension are renowned as the country’s leaders in suspension repairs & upgrades. We are the best in BMW LC ESA shock repairs as well as all other shocks and forks.
What makes us better is the fact that we have been to Germany on several occasions (five times in fact) to train specifically in BMW ESA suspension. This enables us to do effective lasting repairs on these units.

There are several factors that make the difference with our repairs, compared to all the new wave of supposed ‘experts’ on suspension repairs that seem to be springing up all over the country.

For starters, the old-style ESA shocks were able to be repaired by reconditioning the seal head. Not so on the LC Dynamic ESA series. The original seal head in the LC is equipped with a pathetic little “quad” oil seal that cannot take the punch we throw at the bike in SA, and the oil seal blows. This means that the whole seal head needs to be replaced.
We used to get replacement seal heads from Wilbers, but they won’t supply us any more and I can understand why, as all the Wilbers dealers were repairing the OEM LC shocks with these parts and the sales of the Wilbers upgrade LC suspensions were taking a knock. So Wilbers have stopped supplying us.

However, after years of research we have sourced the complete shock upgrade part package. We now have updated, more advanced seal heads which come from the European manufacturer that makes seal heads for a lot of the shock manufacturers, like WP, TFX, Wilbers, Marzocci etc. The Seal Head they produce is rebuildable and dependable. It is manufactured from the correct material and carries a proper 15x26 oil seal instead of the pathetic quad seal that the original shock does, plus has a dust seal which the original OEM one doesn’t have for whatever reason.

We are the only company in South Africa with access to these parts.

This is the reason a large majority of BMW dealers and other bike repair shops country-wide utilize us.

After 7 years of doing repairs and upgrades on the Dynamic ESA LC suspension, we have determined that sadly these shocks have four different points of failure and some other supposed suspension experts do not know to attend to these.

The FIRST point of failure is this said seal head. This is the basic repair that other repairers do, they simply put another oil seal into the existing seal head, which WILL again fail. Our repair described above is the only way it can done effectively.

We do a complete strip of the shock down to the bare bones, as per pic below, to determine the second point of failure.

This SECOND part is the shim stack block housing. The mounting is inferior and the whole shim block comes adrift, out of its housing.
This we rectify this with the special tool that we have designed and had made. Even if the shim block hasn’t come adrift yet, we still perform this modification, to prevent the future failure of this part. We also cement it with a special Loctite product we imported ourselves from USA, it will cement a Zola Budd taxi together 😊
We conducted a survey of thirteen front LC shocks that came in over a two-week period recently and nine of those showed that this failure had already occurred.

The THIRD failure point is in the compression canister. In this cannister is the separating piston. This is the part that separates the nitrogen charge in the cannister from the oil in the shock. The OEM one in the LC shocks is made from an ABS plastic material, not even Teflon. It simply does not cope with the pressure. The pressure on the nitrogen side of the cannister is a huge 18 Bar, so it holds back a lot of pressure from that side as well as having to retain the oil pressure on the shock body side. Imagine what that must be when hitting a large bump/jump or pothole?
Our solution is we also now have a proper separating piston made from CNC machined high grade 7075 aluminum, from the same European manufacturer. It has both an O ring as well as a collar band to ensure a perfect seal and maximum performance without stiction.

This FOURTH point of failure we have experienced, is the cannister end cap.
At the bottom of the compression canister there is a cap which also is given to leaking once we charge the shock again with the 18 bar of nitrogen that this unit requires.
The solution is we also have a revised end cap to replace the original one.
Again, our replacement unit is made from that same top grade CNC machined aluminum, along with a correctly seating O ring and a multi-use charge port  to allow it to cope with multiple nitrogen fills.

Once all these parts have been replaced, we have basically re-vamped all the weak points of the unit, making it less susceptible to further failure and able to carry you with confidence.

Once assembled and vacuum bled correctly under current charge (again, this process other repairers don’t know to do) The reason we bleed it with current attached, is to excite the internal DDA valve into an open state. This prevents the chance of any air being trapped within the DDA valve. Air within this type of shock will certainly cause performance issues or even total failure, as air expands and is also made up of one part water.
Once bled - we submerge the unit in a liquid bath to ensure there are no pressure leaks as the unit is charged with 18 bar Nitrogen.

The replacement cost for this shock is R24 000.00 for a front shock and R33 000 for a rear shock, from BMW dealers.

Our repair costs on these units are more cost effective. We advise doing the full repair.


 

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