Odd feeling after fork springs changed.

Right, i fitted some maxton springs in the forks recently and on the way to the iam was expecting to be blown away. I am not sure if its because it was very windy or what, but the bike felt like it wanted to chew me up and spit me firmly down the road. Was as if I was riding on a knife and given the chance it felt very eager to wobble (this is probably making no sense!). Am i over reacting and this is just the feel that they would give or have i co*ked up somewhere? i did notice that when jacked up the bars fell to one side rather than staying put? But put that down to the floor being un-even....

Any advice would be very welcome as i was really confident on the bike before and now it just feels wrong, if it aint broke don't fix it and all that.

Cheers,
Ash.

[northwind]

Well... If the old springs were much too soft you'd be sagging the bike more, so it could feel more sunk down and stable. That's a possibility I guess... TBH you cna get used to anything, even a change for the better can feel terrible when you first get on, so I wouldn't rule that out either.

Originally Posted by arcdef

i did notice that when jacked up the bars fell to one side rather than staying put? But put that down to the floor being un-even....

That's steering mechanism mass distribution for stability. Keeping the centre of mass ahead of the axis of steering means that the bars will steer in the direction of lean by themselves, keeping the bike upright rather than not, and that's why they fall to one side if the wheel's off the ground.

Anyway, nothing worse than going to a lot of trouble making an improvement which just makes things seem worse.

I assume you reset the pre-load and have double checked everything else is as it was. In that case I'd guess NW is right and it could be just that different seems weird.

[Biker Biggles]

Id say if it feels noticeably carp after mods check it all again.Assuming you had the forks out Id slacken off the spindle and all the clamps except the top ones and bounce the front to realign everything.As said set the preload/static sag,and make sure you have the correct amount of oil in the forks.

It hasn't got pre load adjusters on it so nothing I can do there! I guess it could be just dwn to being different, went out again and it wasn't as bad but at 70+ felt very eager to lean. Hmmm i think your right just me...will be interesting when i get the rear changed soon as well!

[northwind]

You can adjust it internally- changing the length of the spacers that sit on top of the springs. That's all the preload adjusters do really...

Yeah, but they supplied new spacers as well so I would have thought its right. Have to say they did specify a much bigger air gap than standard - 140mm vs 104mm!

[yorkie_chris]

Air gaps biggest effect is on the last section of fork travel like the last 10-20mm under braking

I had my air gap set to 98mm , bike feels stable in normal use and gives good feedback under braking , but I am a heavy guy . The difference when I fitted my Maxtons was like light and day and gave me bags of confidance but the difference was that after we fitted the springs , Luckypants set up the sag on my bike and I also have a GSXR1000 rear shock so the bike is more balanced either end on suspension .

By the way , when you got rid of the old oil , did you pump the forls up and down to make sure the old oil was burped out ? and when you added the new oil did you do the same again to draw it back in ?

We also left the legs standing for a while so any air bubbles came out before making sure the air gap was equal in both legs .