R80 G/S fork preload

scooter paul

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Stripping down my R80G/S forks to replace the perished gaiters I found this preload spacer under the right hand fork cap. There wasn’t one under the left. Hopefully you can see that it has a machined shoulder to centralise the spring. From the very detailed, hand written notes that came with the bike the front forks have been previously taken apart. Could one spacer have gone missing? Or for some strange reason should there be only one?
 

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You first need to establish by how much your spacer is actually pre loading the spring.
 
How much preload you want depends on the springs in the forks, and the spring and settings at the rear.
I have a Ohlins on my PD with a custom made soft spring, probably around 400 lb, which gives me around 65 mm of well damped rider sag.
The forks have the softest factory spring for 36 mm forks with no additional spacers, and with 5wt synth suspension fluid and Sahara 3 s at 31/33 I am able to tune the Ohlins to them almost perfectly.
Floats over bumps with the legendary Ohlins Magic carpet, and well damped enough to hold a perfect line when cruising on our bumpy main roads at the state limit.
A SJ billet top triple, and tubular lower brace help here too as after 460,000 km the forks are understandably a little loose without them.
To advise on you spacer without knowing what you have elsewhere in the suspension is pointless, as in the final analysis what you are balancing is front to rear, rear around 10% stiffer than the front, and the clue that you are getting close is when a small change at one end makes both ends feel better.
FWIW I dont notice any difference in handling between a full or almost empty G/S PD tank , but the HPN inserts in my GS came with two sets of preload spacers, 10 mm longer for the PD.
 


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