Eddieb's DR build thread.

[Night Falcon]

Great to hear ya making a good recovery Eddie. Took me a few rides to get comfortable on my bike again and I'm still nervous about dropping it in the rough stuff so tend to ride a bit slower. Its also amazing how much fitness you lose/need to make up when you havn't been riding for a while, the cross trainer was well used...for a while anyway

[Eddieb]

Went for my first proper ride yesterday on 'George' the old DR. 250km's of road and light gravel work, It was awesome.

Today a 43 tooth sprocket was fitted to the rear of the new DR and a current Rego sticker added. Hopefully my shock will arrive back this week and I can put it all back together and make sure it's all good to go for the South Island trip at the end of this month.

[dino3310]

Sweet bro glad to hear your back on the saddle

[dino3310]

speaking of feet

[Eddieb]

speaking of feet

Oh shit, what did you do?

[dino3310]

another back yard blunder, mark would say "i did a Dino"
nothing major just a teeny tiny fracture on one of the small bones in me foot, couple of weeks i'll be sweet.
i took the back slab off and chucked my old moon boot back on tonight way better to get around on, lecky leg on the XR would be nice about now

[Eddieb]

I got my reshimmed shock back today and have fitted it back on the bike. I'm a bit confused with setting up the sag though with the heavier 8.3? Eibach spring I have, Damping is set at halfway, 12 clicks from either end.

Working with the passenger footpeg unloaded height is ~590mm
I was trying to get settings of approx ~20mm static sag and 85-100mm race sag, but I'm getting static sag at ~510mm and race sag ~490mm. I would have expected a much smaller difference between the unloaded and static settings and a much greater difference between Static and race sag.

Increasing or reducing preload doesn't seem to change the ratio of the differences.

Am I doing something wrong or is it a case of incorrect spring rate?

[NordieBoy]

With the 7.6kg/mm spring and 90kg me, I'm running 15% static and 30% race sag.

Yours sounds like 14% and 17%

Too heavy spring unless you carry a backpack with 50kg of crap in it on rides.

The RaceTech calculator has gone to the dogs with it's recommendations these days.

Although it may work fine after breaking in.

[Eddieb]

I got my reshimmed shock back today and have fitted it back on the bike. I'm a bit confused with setting up the sag though with the heavier 8.3? Eibach spring I have, Damping is set at halfway, 12 clicks from either end.

Working with the passenger footpeg unloaded height is ~590mm
I was trying to get settings of approx ~20mm static sag and 85-100mm race sag, but I'm getting static sag at ~510mm and race sag ~490mm. I would have expected a much smaller difference between the unloaded and static settings and a much greater difference between Static and race sag.

Increasing or reducing preload doesn't seem to change the ratio of the differences.

Am I doing something wrong or is it a case of incorrect spring rate?

So I think I was doing it wrong, and I didn't really understand what I was working out, which is about situation normal. Some more examining, reading and head scratching and I think I have it.

First off the spring appears to be a 7.6kg spring, I had my numbers wrong but when I looked at the spring tonight I saw it's markings

The DR shock has 9 inches of travel, which in real money is ~228mm.
For Nordie's figures of 15% static and 30% race sag that would mean I need 34.5mm and 69mm of sag respectively.

When I started measuring last night I was using the rear footpegs to the ground, which according to everything I've now read isn't really correct, it's too far forward for a start. The idea is to use the rear axle & a constant point somewhere on the bike above the axle. Seeing as I am doing this alone it was a bit awkward but tonight I've found a point on my pannier frames that should suffice for now, though really I think it's still on too much of an angle.

So my figures from tonight are as below, this is without the seat or tank fitted so that may cause things to drop a little, at the moment I'm just trying to get it back together for going for the South Island trip in 2 weeks where it will be loaded up a bit as well so that will pull the figures more into line. Long term I think I will have to drop it some more though for solo riding.

Unloaded: 565mm
Static sag: 545mm - 20mm/230mm of travel = 8.77% sag
Race sag: 515mm - 50mm/230mm of travel = 21.92% sag

[NordieBoy]

Unloaded: 565mm
Static sag: 545mm - 20mm/230mm of travel = 8.77% sag
Race sag: 515mm - 50mm/230mm of travel = 21.92% sag

Sounds better.
With a load, that 9% would come closer to 15% and the race sag would be closer to 28%. About right.

Also means you can slack off the preload and get the static closer to 15% and the race should be in the 30% ballpark.

[Eddieb]

It's fricken tall though, I have about the same amount of ground contact as I did on the 950, but there's 50kg less. That might take a bit of getting used to again. An inch lower would be nice.

[NordieBoy]

It's fricken tall though, I have about the same amount of ground contact as I did on the 950, but there's 50kg less. That might take a bit of getting used to again. An inch lower would be nice.

Crank the preload out then. Another 20mm (about 1mm per turn of the collar) should be doable.

[Eddieb]

Crank the preload out then. Another 20mm (about 1mm per turn of the collar) should be doable.

I slacked off the preload some more, my measuring stick wasn't that accurate as it was done while fitted to the bike with the airbox etc all in place so ended up being a little too much The numbers are now:

Unloaded: 565mm
Static sag: 514mm - 51mm/230mm of travel = 22.17% sag
Race sag: 489mm - 76mm/230mm of travel = 33.04% sag

However this doesn't feel like it's given any more ground contact, maybe the differences are too small to be noticeable.

I took the bike for it's first ride this evening since the accident and discovered that even though I thought I'd eyeballed everything the forks are significantly twisted in the clamps and the front brakes have zero stopping power. The forks should be an easy fix and luckily I have a spare set of new pads still in the box, I figure as careful as I was I must have spilt some brake fluid on them or something when I replaced the brake line.

For the ride the bike was on yesterdays sag settings and it was pretty good around the streets. The re shim has made a huge difference and it was riding very nice over all potholes and bumps I could find. It's possibly a little hard given that it's riding very nice with no damping wound on at all. I don't know if that's the sort of thing that 'settles in' a little with a bit of initial use after a rebuild or not? It's extremely nice and worlds better than before the rebuild but I usually like to dial in a little plushness and there's no room for that at present.

Over the weekend I'll straighten the forks, replace the pads and then take it out with the new settings and see what happens and whether I want/need to crank it back up closer to the 15%/30% figures.

I also need to adjust the scottoiler outlet as it's lubing the center of the sprocket, not the chain.

[Eddieb]

I went for a ride down to TSS this morning as it turned out my spare pads were rears not fronts. Picked up a new set and fitted them and adjusted the front forks to something hopefully resembling straight and changed the Scottoiler setup so that hopefully the oil will end up on the chain.

I'm liking the current sag settings. I think it will stay like that for a while till I gt a chance to ride over something a little rougher and see how it handles that.

While in the garage I also fitted one of the Rotopax kits I was lucky enough to pick up off ADVGD a month or 2 back to see how they work.

[Eddieb]

Played with the sag a bit more and rode the bike a bit more. I've decided the rear shock is pretty bloody good, in fact it makes the Intiminators feel pretty average. While the Intiminators are a big improvement in terms of road holding and reduction of brake dive I'm finding mine very harsh at city speeds, to the point where they are uncomfortably harsh at times.

In contrast the rear shock is bliss, I think my initial misgivings about it was more my state of mind returning to riding after my accident and still very anxious about how my foot as going to cope rather than any shortcomings of the shock rebuild. The rear of the bike feels so smooth, at least with about 5kg of weight on the back anyway. My trip today had a full 3.8ltr Rotopax bolted on and a bit of stuff in the top box.

I managed to get the forks pretty close to straight, but the Scottoiler still isn't working. If I set it to prime it flows freely but on anything less than that it doesn't flow at all.

I also filled the bike up and worked the economy out at 14.5km/l. I almost had a heart attack until I remembered this was still the same tank as my accident, and I dumped a fair bit then.