White House K10 - a story of regeneration

[jtopiso_imp]

Yap, there she is, a blue queen
Do you want me ro rd-test it, while you doing office duty?

Gee PB, that' SO generous of you!

But talking of road tests, after the first ride out to Chester I thought the ride quality was a little harsh, at the weekend I backed off the front pre-load adjuster to the stock position (3 rings - was in 2) and also turned down the HyperPro rear shocks from mid position, 25 clicks - or 2.5 turns, to approx 30 clicks or 3 turns from max. Of course, after 5 sleeps I had completely forgotten about the change and only recalled what I had done when around 6.5 miles into my 7.5 mile commute after hitting a roundabout with a particularly poor road surface. Before I would have found it harsh, now it simply rode straight over and was completely unperturbed. Happy days. Suspension adjustment - done.

I'll be back in the garage at the weekend to have another go at the chrome grab rail brackets - had another idea to extend the bracket to incorporate the K0 indicator support so will be drilling metal again to test it out. More later.

Gee PB, that' SO generous of you!

But talking of road tests, after the first ride out to Chester I thought the ride quality was a little harsh, at the weekend I backed off the front pre-load adjuster to the stock position (3 rings - was in 2) and also turned down the HyperPro rear shocks from mid position, 25 clicks - or 2.5 turns, to approx 30 clicks or 3 turns from max. Of course, after 5 sleeps I had completely forgotten about the change and only recalled what I had done when around 6.5 miles into my 7.5 mile commute after hitting a roundabout with a particularly poor road surface. Before I would have found it harsh, now it simply rode straight over and was completely unperturbed. Happy days. Suspension adjustment - done.

I'll be back in the garage at the weekend to have another go at the chrome grab rail brackets - had another idea to extend the bracket to incorporate the K0 indicator support so will be drilling metal again to test it out. More later. How does adjusting your preload one notch change the front end from harsh to less harsh? Your spring rate is the same no matter where you set your preload. Your preload is only setting where your fork/shock sit in its stroke, e.g. 25% or 30% for example. It is there to adjust for load. I can understand the rear, sounds like you are adjusting the damping on the Hyperpros.

To add a bit to your point, check an old post:
http://cb1100forum.com/forum/showthread....#pid250414

I haven't looked into the valving and spring rates of the stock forks/shocks- nor my upgraded to SDBV forks- but I can certainly say no -

"How does adjusting your preload one notch change the front end from harsh to less harsh? Your spring rate is the same no matter where you set your preload."

Is not true. Neither is the valving on many modern suspension.

Although the effect is probably minimal- it still has an effect.

A constant rate spring- would be constant in spacing and diameter the entire way. When they are not- part of the spring is 'softer' to compress first - either on impact- or when squeezed- as the spring doesn't know the difference. So 'pre-load' is just constant load-no different than load from a bump. The soft 'area' gives up first.

If you have gas filled dampers (as on the rear), changing preload changes how the gas volume on the damper.

The gas acts as a gas-spring working in paralel with the main ride-spring. The gas-spring rate is minimal compared with the ride spring (coil-spring), but it's not neglectable. Changing preload will change the spring rate for this gas spring, but not on the coil-spring.

On the front, as far as I know, there are no gas dampers, so rate should be constant.

All the above, assuming constant rate coil-springs, which are usually the case.