ZX10R 06-07 Shock rebuild?

[CodeJACK]

Hard to believe its taken me this long to tackle the job but finally I got round to rebuilding the shock myself. I have some pics that I'll post later but I was so covered in goopy oily crap that I didnt want to mess up my camera/phone as I went.

Parts for the KYB shocks do not seem to be readily available but thankfully, mine did not need anything (IMO).

I could have reused the nitrogen filler valve but found it easier to locate a shop to refill with a schader valve so I purchased a RaceTech cap from ebay.

Getting the nirtrogen out scared the crap out of me as I didnt know what to expect. I made a needle out of and old ink catridge filler needle. Sharpened it up with a dremel and then fitted it to a plank of wood with a whole to let the gas escape. So from a distance the gas came out quite uneventfully and the tear down started.

Press in the small whole where the needle was with a suitable sized allen key. All this is doing is forcing the rubber stopper into the bladder and clearing any minor trapped air/gas.

Use a socket to press the silver cap into the housing and to allow access to the cirplip holding it in place. Then put a hook into the small hole in the reservoir cap and pull (hammer) the cap out.

The oil that came out of mine was very watery and black with dirt.

At this point, I could have just put new oil in and flushed it through a few times to clear out anything in the main housing.
But no, I decided to go deeper and take the lot appart. (face palm)

To get the main piston out, force the seal head into the main housing with your fingers. This was really hard to do but eventually I got it. Take out the retaining clip and then pull the piston assembly out.

On inspection, mine looked almost new inside. I was impressed.

I then thought, sure it will be grand, and went a little deeper.

I removed the peened end of the shock shaft using a dremel. I screwed this up but really it was not that hard and had I taken my time and thought about it, I could have done a far neater job. In the end, I had to resort to retaping the theads. Not great but i was still able to put it all back together and torque it to 28Nm with locktight.

All this allowed me to inspect all parts of the seals and realise that they all had no tears/nicks/bad wear.

Cleaned everything with contact cleaner and put it all back together.

I used Maxima 5wt fork oil as I could not find a shop here that sold shock oil higher than 3wt. It might not work all that well but if not, then I get a new shock in time.

I'll put up some pics later when I can.