B1h shock change on a pointy (take 2)

So, last week Squirrel_Hunter, _stretchie_ and I went to change the standard shock in my pointy SV over to an (I think) 2003 B1h shock.

I'll start from scratch and follow it through to the end.

Get the bike on the Abba stand to take the weight off the shock:


Take off the seat, rear fairing and tank to expose the standard shock:


And from another angle:


Remove the standard shock:


Remember to support the back wheel - we had it on a block of wood and a piece of foam, which comes in handy later:



The new shock ready to go in:


And for comparison - the new shock and the old next to each other along with the precision instrument to remove it:


Now for the bolts. Old bolt on the left is 56mm because the old shock is threaded. The new bolt is 63mm and uses a self locking nut. We also used that washer (2.5mm) as a spacer to match the width of the old shock which we measured using a precision measuring thingy:


Then it was time for the install - I'm afraid we don't have any pictures of this. But, it fitted in exactly the same way as the old shock - remembering to insert the bolt from the right as it was on the old shock. This seemed to stop the problem of the nut and/or bolt rubbing on the dog bones. To test, Stretchie mounted the rear end (oo-err) while SH was on all fours checking clearance. A more common sight that you might think in their garage. And again, no pics of this.

We then had to do the battery box cut. Despite reading the threads on this for the gixxer shock (on a pointy) and a kwak shock (on a curvy) with the pictures - mine seemed to look nothing like this. Perhaps because we were fitting a kwak shock to a pointy? I don't know. Anyway, we took some pictures of this from several angles.

From front on. We had to dremmel away quite a lot and if we could do it again, we would leave the plastic attached on the right hand side for rigidity:



Now - from the front you can see that we have cut off all the mountings etc. A word of warning. We didn't know the the mounting on the left as you look at it as a rubber mount for the tilt sensor. So, we simply cable tied this back on the battery box roughly where it came from but didn't pull them tight. This resulted in us being able to start the bike on the Abba stand but NOT while it was on the side stand. It didn't take us long to diagnose the problem but it was a complete ball ache. To solve this, we used 3 cable ties to mount it level and tightly against the battery box.

From on top - so you can see how much of a lip the battery had to sit on:



From the bottom - again to see what the battery is sitting on:


And for completeness the view from the left i.e. the side from which the tool kit goes in from. Just for information, the tool kit will still fit in there despite the new shock:


As you know, the battery now needs to be lifted clear of the new shock reservoir otherwise it will rub. For this, we used foam blocks. I don't know how thick the foam was etc but this is what it looked like and we had a few mm clearance:


And from another angle for some perception:


Then we had to get the battery back in. This isn't a problem, it now just sits very high in the bike:


The battery, once in, didn't sit quite straight and had a tendancy to fall forward. To stop this, we used a flat head screwdriver to wedge two pieces of foam either side to keep it up right. Note also the tilt sensor cable tied on the left with only 1 cable tie so it flapped around.


This is how it sat in the bike with fairing on:


We did have to trim that grey piece of foam under the main seat for it to go back on. We trimmed about half and it doesn't put a lot of pressure on the battery at all.

Big thanks to Squirrel, Stretchie and Valley Boy (although he wasn't there, it was his shock!)

First impressions. It's hard and will need some tweaking.

Where did you get the bottom shock mounting bolt from?

The bolt in the picture is an engine mounting bolt from a curvey. However, we didn't use this bolt in the end and we used a high tensile bolt that Stretchie had for doing bits to his land rover.

This being said - Stretchie isn't 100% sure if this is the correct bolt, but SH said he would be happy to ride the bike with this set up, but then again I've seen what he rides

If it does need changing I will let you know, but it's only a 5 minute job.

I have the shock and a bike to fit it to, just not sorted out the bolt and a free day to do the swap

When it does get fitted and you've had a go will you let me know how you've got it adjusted?

I'm around 13/14 stone kitted and I have it set-up to what I believe is standard (4.5 turns out) and it's rock hard. Squirrel and I are gonna tinker with it this week to see what can be done it will be interesting to see what you can come up with.

Just for more information, SH checked that the high tensile bolt is fine and it is.

AFAIK the linkage design is different on the Pointy and that came with a softer stock shock, so I don't know if my results will help you much.

Heres some info:


STOCK:
1999 - 2002 SV650 and SV650S have 510 lbs/inch - 9.129 kg/mm shock spring.
2003 - 2008 SV650 and SV650S have 430 lbs/inch - 7.697 kg/mm shock spring.

The 636 shock should be about 540 lbs/inch from a bit of googling

[Mr Speirs]

I remember my ZX10R shock was 540lbs/inch which is why I chose that for my curvy.

But wasn't sure what the 636 shock was sprung at.

If it is 540 lbs/inch then it's going to be far too hard for the pointy.

03-04 ZX6R(636) 340mm 540#

The above is from the list of shocks on the thread below. 10 mm longer and 110bls harder than a standard curvy!!

http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.php?t=137793

[Mr Speirs]

Yup. You aren't going to be able to do anything with that. 110lbs/inch more is too much.

The standard swap for a pointy is a GSXR shock.

That shock you have put in is better suited to a curvy.

I thought it felt a touch hard...

Thanks for the info, I will see what can be done about a gixxer shock.