| Author | Message | ||
     The4ork |
the big nut on the aft portion of the rear shock (its a lock nut) where the adjuster is (im guessing for height?) anywho, its vibrated loose and is floating around at free will. how dangerous is this? because i dont have a wrench large enough to tighten it but if i ride into town (bout 20mi) i know of a few places that i can borrow one that size. is it too dangerous to ride like that? or should i be fine? | ||
| Jramsey |
You should be fine if you run the jam nut up finger tight then borrow the correct size wrench to snug it. | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
If it really freaks you out, you can put a dot on the threads with a sharpie to verify it's not moving around on you. Worst that could happen is it could soften your preload. When my last shock failed, I noticed mine was finger tight and had been for a very long time. Of course this was unrelated to the failure but it also shows you how often I screwed around with the thing under there  | ||
| Preybird1 |
my friend used an oil filter wrench, It was a large pliers looking thing. Worked very well actually. | ||
| 2km2cyclone |
I have a cover over that nut on my bike.It is the locknut which holds the rear shock preload adjustment.You spin the shock cylinder towards the front of the bike to soften preload away to stiffen.That shock don't spin very easily. It took me and my buddy to spin it with our bare hands. Its a really hard nut so i just used a pipewrench and it didn't scuff it at all. Fyi when I took off the 2 piece cover my locknut was finger/tight too. | ||
| Littlebuggles |
Mine shook loose on the track and the shock spun about a half turn as far as I could tell. Finished the track day that way, then used some really big channel locks to snug the lock ring back down. Still haven't bothered to correct the spring pre-load back. My experience is it won't kill you, but may eventually affect your bikes handling. | ||
| Fasted |
if you don't get that nut back on its proper place, it will bounce around and bugger the threads. then you have to find someone with a lathe willing to retap the threads so that it will go back on. get it back on at least finger-tight and locktite it until you can do it right. great time to set your preload correctly | ||
| 2km2cyclone |
Fasted I agree.Would be a great time to adj. preload. I just adjusted my preload and what a diffence it made. I got much more confidence in the corners and My ride is much smoother.Not so wheelie happy either. | ||
| Trapperjack |
After spending some time speaking with an employee at my local Ace Hardware, he recommended using a slip nut wrench from their plumbing section (http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?produ ctId=1273231). I bought two slip nut wrenches to adjust the rear shock preload on my 2002 X1. The jaws are thin and allow both wrenches to be used side-by-side for a proper adjustment. I'm not sure what wrenches a shop would use, but the slip nut wrenches are pretty inexpensive and seem to be just about perfect. | ||
| Hughlysses |
A plumbing slip nut wrench works well; you can get them at any building supply store. Here's a post from an earlier thread showing one: http://www.badweatherbikers.com/cgibin/discus/show .cgi?tpc=3842&post=71836#POST71836 A good trick for keeping the locknut from backing off completely (it won't keep it tight, but it'll keep it from unscrewing completely and boogering the threads) is to put a zip-tie around the threads behind the nut. |
