kiwiape
Husqvarna
AA Class
after riding some 600k odd last weekend, I noticed my front suspension was a bit stiff.....on one piece of slab my head was being shaken so badly I could hardly focus on the road no matter how much I relaxed my arms and it got me thinking about pulling my folks apart and seeing what could be done to improve them, after all they have done 19,000ks to date since new.
Hearing comments about our folks being cartridge type and not serviceable I wasn't quite sure what to expect and the workshop manual wasn't much help and you can't even find how much oil they should hold (did I miss it somewhere??).
With both folks out I notice the right one is sticky and the left one seems low on oil. Draining them both of oil I notice the factory volumes are different, one had about 500mls and the other had 650 odd, what withs that I wonder??.....there’s a problem, or is there?.
Getting the folks apart required a rattle gun on the bottom cap screw, with this out and the top cap nut off, the entire cartridge can be removed as one. Both internals looked ok but there was a bit of crud in the bottom of one leg.
I was about to reassemble when I decided to completely strip the internals and its then I find the right piston was full of crud and different to the left one....what? have they been assembled wrong??,……No, one is compression dampening and one is rebound, thats not mentioned any where that I have seen?!
Ok so the right folk is Compression and the left is Rebound,... the manual doesn't say that!!. I give them a good old clean and reassemble, but how much oil do I put in them? Using Motul 5W which seemed a lot lighter than factory, I decide to put 700ml in each leg and try it, well it was terrible, way to stiff. Ok, so let’s try and make them as soft as possible, a quick volume calc. and 400ml (this is about 273mm) is minimum needed to cover the intake holes in both legs. A quick test ride and its feeling pretty good, but I'm thinking I want more response, so when I get some more time I’m going to try 2.5W in the right leg only to increase response and adjust the oil volume to give enough progression to stop bottoming.
2/9/15. Right folk changed to Motul 2.5W, 550ml or 188mm to top of outer, response feels better, and progression seems ok, all left to do is ride it.
One very important tip. Clean all the loctite out of the bottom cap screws and DO NOT use loctite to reassemble them (unless you never want to pull it apart again), because the bung/nut they screw into is not held and can turn and if it does, your in real deep, deep shit,....and you wont be able to get it apart or tighten it up.
Hearing comments about our folks being cartridge type and not serviceable I wasn't quite sure what to expect and the workshop manual wasn't much help and you can't even find how much oil they should hold (did I miss it somewhere??).
With both folks out I notice the right one is sticky and the left one seems low on oil. Draining them both of oil I notice the factory volumes are different, one had about 500mls and the other had 650 odd, what withs that I wonder??.....there’s a problem, or is there?.
Getting the folks apart required a rattle gun on the bottom cap screw, with this out and the top cap nut off, the entire cartridge can be removed as one. Both internals looked ok but there was a bit of crud in the bottom of one leg.
I was about to reassemble when I decided to completely strip the internals and its then I find the right piston was full of crud and different to the left one....what? have they been assembled wrong??,……No, one is compression dampening and one is rebound, thats not mentioned any where that I have seen?!
Ok so the right folk is Compression and the left is Rebound,... the manual doesn't say that!!. I give them a good old clean and reassemble, but how much oil do I put in them? Using Motul 5W which seemed a lot lighter than factory, I decide to put 700ml in each leg and try it, well it was terrible, way to stiff. Ok, so let’s try and make them as soft as possible, a quick volume calc. and 400ml (this is about 273mm) is minimum needed to cover the intake holes in both legs. A quick test ride and its feeling pretty good, but I'm thinking I want more response, so when I get some more time I’m going to try 2.5W in the right leg only to increase response and adjust the oil volume to give enough progression to stop bottoming.
2/9/15. Right folk changed to Motul 2.5W, 550ml or 188mm to top of outer, response feels better, and progression seems ok, all left to do is ride it.
One very important tip. Clean all the loctite out of the bottom cap screws and DO NOT use loctite to reassemble them (unless you never want to pull it apart again), because the bung/nut they screw into is not held and can turn and if it does, your in real deep, deep shit,....and you wont be able to get it apart or tighten it up.
