gonna try building a custom shock.....sorta.

[great white]

So, a little time on the lathe:



And:



I present, for your pleasure, the hydraulic remote preload adjuster CBR/RR FJ1200 shock.



I had to take a little less than 1mm off the body, which means the casting thickness is a little less than .5mm what it was. The shock body at that point is still a good 3 times as thick as the the lower body that is screwed in to it, so no worries. The the ZG adjuster went on with just a very slight friction fit. It installs an removes by hand, but you have to put just a little bit of force into it to slide. Perfect. Just the way I wanted it. Nice and tight so no movement or rattles.

You can see just a little gap where the adjuster meets the shock body at the top:



You can see there's a "tab" on the top of the ZG piece. That's to locate the hose in the correct orientation once installed. I haven't figured that out at this point, but once I get it positioned properly the shock body will get a little file work to make a recess to receive the locating tab and then the adjuster will sit flush with the shock body at the top.

The ZG adjuster takes up 37.5 mm of space where the spring would sit, but the CBR/RR manual adjuster takes up 39 mm (both at their lowest settings). So once I get the adapter rings made to hold standard straight coil springs, it should all work out about even. I might loose a MM or so of spring length, but I'll just order spring the right length and rate for that. Well worth it for the remote adjuster ability.

Coming along nicely, if not a little slow. I'm splitting time right now between the FZ1 swingarm project and the shock. When I get tired of working on one, I switch to the other.

[great white]

I think it was Pat that was asking about the stroke of the adjuster.

I took it all apart to clean the internals and give it a fresh fill of dot 3. Once it was back together it moved freely, so I slowly ran it out to its travel limit to make sure it would stop before blowing out the piston seals.

It has an 11mm stroke, same as the difference between the high and low steps on the cbr/rr manual adjuster.

[Pat Conlon]

Ok, thanks again, 11mm spring preload compression should work ok.....Now, I just need to get down and dirty to measure the shock body on my Penske to see if it's close to 50mm ID of the collar.

[great white]

I cannibalized an old F4i shock I had in the scrap pile for it's hose to remote mount the RR reservoir. The hose  is going to change the behaviour of the damping (small ID hose compared to the open passage in a stock RR shock),  but "custom" is often just another word for "compromise". So be it.

As I took it apart, I noted the ID of the f4i res looked to be the same as the rr.

Yep, the rr bladder/cap went in like it was meant to be there. That got me thinking maybe I could just use the f4i res on the RR shock body. That sure would save a lot of time and hassle.

But alas, as soon as I pulled out the damping valve and compared it to the RR, that plan was toast:



The RR valve is a much more refined piece, you can clearly see the advances over the F4i valve.

So, back to today being a "welding day". For both the shock and swingarm projects...

[great white]

Ugh, now that word "compromise" is grating on my nerves.

Trying to formulate a plan for a rigid connection between the reservoir and the shock body so I can maintain the passage area/volume. Probably end up with more shock oil volume if I work it out as it will be a longer tube than OEM mounting.

That's both a good and a bad thing.

Good: more oil means more heat capacity and a longer body connection means more potential to cool that fluid.

BAd: the longer it is, the more susceptible to vibration and cracking it will be.....not to mention severely limiting the mounting location options.

[great white]

Went over and over it,  no way to get away from using a remote hose.

Oh well, thats the way she goes...

Changed up from using the 600rr reservoir to using the one off the 1000rr:



It fits better with the remote mounting option. Since the 1000rr sticks straight out the back of the shock, it means the rebound/damping valve is on the side instead of under the res:



Muuuuch easier to get to the adjuster with it this way!



I just cut the top off the 1000rr shock, then machined an Al plug (sized to the opening) with an offset threaded boss for the hose. Couple passes with the spool gun and:



An unexpected bonus is the original shock top mount works great as a mount for the res! Lol!

But still a bit raw there. Some cleanup work and a spritz of semigloss black and it will look like it was cast as one piece.

Theres actually more weld there than I needed. I offset the boss to the bottom to help get rid of air traps when filling, But when I welded around the circumference of the plug, it looked funny to have weld on one side of the boss but not on the other. So I just fillet welded the other side (for looks mainly) and some shaping with the sander will make it look like one piece.

The part where the hose attaches is round, because it was originally the top of the shock body. It's functional as is, but I may cut the sides off and weld plates on there so it doesn't look like some kind of "accumulator" at that point. Dunno...this is prototype #1 so there could be lots of changes before I'm done.

Couldn't resist popping the bodywork back on for a quick look:



I like it!

The brake caliper will be changed to an underslung monoblock, gold center cap.

Tomorrow, it's on to welding on the adapter block to the shock body and tapping for the hose. For the time being, I'll put the shock back together with one of the 800-odd lb springs I have lying around. I'll leave it like that for now so the bike is a "roller" and order a new spring of approriate rate.  I'll have to dump some shock oil in there too, just to keep the internals lubricated. Valving and weight I'll sort out when I get the bike back on the road sometime next year.

So lets see here, there's one cbr600rr shock, one cbr1000rr shock, one gtr1400 shock and one cbr600f4i shock in there so far!  Not bad for a bunch of parts that have been lying around taking up space for a couple years....lol!

[great white]

There we go:



Cbr600rr shock body, gtr1400 remote hydraulic adjuster and FI1200 spring. It's still a ways off from being done, but thats the bulk of it:



Whats left to do:

Weld the plate over the opening in the shock body and tap for the reservoir hose, make a solid lower spring perch, fit and adjust the upper and lower mounting points, blow it all apart tidy it up and then a coat of paint, fill with fluid, charge the nitrogen and then the rest is all for the test riding.

I'll see what the stock FJ spring acts like and go from there. Supposedly a 1000-1100 lb spring,  ut it's likely sacked after all these years. Still, I'll run it and see what I get. It didn't wallow or sack when I rode the bike last time, so maybe I'll get lucky.

The remote adjuster I think I will strip and have anodized gold like the shock reservoir, then mount it above:



Coming along nicely!

[great white]

There we go, that will do:

I'll just weld two lugs to the top of the res body, drill and tap, and then bolt the remote preload adjuster down.

I'm sort of changing my mind to just painting the preload adjuster black like the remote res body and calling it a day. I'm thinking black will blend in much better and not make it look too "busy" in that area. The remote res can will stay the anodized gold though...will match the rotor center and the R1 gold dot calipers.

[ZOA NOM]

I've just about had it with your pics. My neck is sore!

[great white]

Don't know what to tell ya, they're right side up when I load them, effed up when I go back to them.

Guess you just have to stop looking at them maybe?

[ZOA NOM]

It's because you're taking the photos in portrait mode. You should turn the phone sideways so it captures the image in landscape mode. The ones you take that way upload correctly.

[great white]

It's because you're taking the photos in portrait mode. You should turn the phone sideways so it captures the image in landscape mode. The ones you take that way upload correctly.

Already tried that and it doesn't seem to matter. Same with flipping the picture, saving it and trying to upload it.

Sometimes uploads right, sometimes not.

Bloody apple....

[great white]

Ok, the top mounting bolt on the FJ just isn't going to work with the CBR bearing/bushing:



The FJ bolt is just too big in diameter. The CBR is actually an eye end style bushing, which means it's hardened. No drilling that and honing means heat, which will kill the teflon insert inside the bushing assembly itself (assuming you can keep it from spinning while honing). Not to mention the mount on the FJ frame is much wider than the CBR bushing, which would mean spacers or bushings of some sort and high probability of bending the shock bolt in the middle after some miles are on it. There's also the problem of the holes in the frame mount being too large if I use the CBR bushing/bolt.

I could alter the FJ frame mount, but I'm always reluctant to modify the frame on any bike. Makes it difficult to go back to stock if I ever want to, which can be an issue if a modification goes south or just doesn't work out. Or, if I ever decide to put it back to stock to sell it.

Nope, I'll have to modify the shock itself. That just makes more sense to me. It's not like I haven't already chopped up that shock beyond recognition already! LOL!

The FJ shock has an internal bushing that rides in two teflon coated plain bearings. I press them out so I can reuse them. Then I remove the dust seals, snap ring and CBR bushing from the CBR shock.

Now I've got all the parts that I need to make an adapter for the shock body.

The CBR shock has an offset shoulder in the bushing hole so the bearing can be pressed in and then a snap ring installed. But I need to make the whole mount wider. So I spin up a chunk of steel that holds the teflon bushings and fits the cbr shock hole. I stepped one side of the adapter down rather than boring out the shock body. It keeps the strength in the aluminum body and the shoulder makes a nice locating "stop" to keep the shock centered. The steel has enough strength to absorb the small reduction in wall thickness on the one side without issue. I make it a press fit, but I always add some loctite blue to take up any variations I may have missed when measuring:




There we go. Same width as the FJ top mount on the shock and it's locked to the body of the CBR shock.

Then I press in the teflon bushings:



You can just see them inside the adapter.

In goes the FJ bushing:



Now the stock FJ bolt slides right in and it's supported just like it is in the FJ shock:



Ah, that's the ticket!

Now it bolts in and tightens down just like the FJ shock does in the stock frame bracket.

The bottom mount is going to be much easier. The CBR clevis is the same internal width as the FJ linkage and the bolt hole just needs to be opened up a size to fit the FJ lower bolt.

Looks like a simple thing to make, but it took me half the day to spin out that little adapter to the tolerances I needed. But the result is well worth the effort!




PS: just for reference, all those pics were taken in "landscape" orientation. All except one of them uploaded sideways.....

[FJ_Hooligan]

Since I don't have all the welding and machining capability that you have, I'm feeling pretty good about my $550 Penske right now.  :-)

[great white]

Since I don't have all the welding and machining capability that you have, I'm feeling pretty good about my $550 Penske right now.  :-)

Absolutely!

No way you could replicate this for that low an amount. This would likely be in the 1000-2000 range if you were to have a shop try and make it and it would be a total gamble for them to have a go at it. Which means if it didn't work out, you'd still be on the hook for their labor bill.....not good.

But I enjoy the challenge of making stuff as much (if not more) than using it and I had all this raw material already lying around collecting dust. It was do something with it or toss it all out in the "retirement purge"...