Just thinking at this stage.... Sometime this winter I'm going to pull the forks on the VTR to replace a leaking seal and, while I'm at it, probably the steering head bearings. This will also allow me to easily clean up the crappy looking middle clamp. Since I have all this planned I was wondering about installing aftermarket preload adjusters. Has anyone ever done this? Are they worth the bother? They seem a pretty cheap mod for a bike that doesn't have any but I don't want to waste my time if they are not worth it. Thanks
My 2 cents - adjust and set the fork preload by altering the length of the spacer tube under the fork cap - coins or washers have also been used before as an easy way to add preload. Spend your money on some gold valve emulators instead of external preload adjusters, so you can at least adjust compression.
how is your bike now ? I would only entertain it if there is an issue. If you do buy the Chinese ones, watch the top seals as they are known to leak.
Thanks @kiffsta for the tip about the top seals, it's exactly the kind of thing I was worried about. It does dive under brakes a bit but I wouldn't have thought it was extreme and changing oil when I do the seals may make a difference anyway. I am considering @A.C 's tip about the emulators as well but I haven't decided yet. We'll see what happens when I do the work
Try a heavier weight oil for starters .... cheap and simple As u said just replacing the oil and it may not have the correct amount also , may help alot
Just going to quickly throw in some advice due to heavy heavy reading I have done on the subject. There are 2 springs working together in the telescopic forks: The metal spring & the oil spring (duh I know) The metal springs role is "mainly" to give a static weight vs compression load handling. Road bikes metal springs can have a slightly progressive nature before a certain amount of compression is reached. The oil springs role is strictly progressive and starts off weak and becomes stronger and stronger as air type springs usually do. In general if the goal is to remove soft progression and give a stiffer feel it would be much better achieved by removing the stock spring and replacing it with a 100% straight rate spring that is matched to you and bikes weight leaving the oil spring stock to keep it doing its natural role and the metal spring doing its natural role. Also its critical to keep in mind that a lack of progressive nature is always a better compromise than too much. Increasing the oil weight and height is actually amplifying the strength of the progressive spring leaving the metal spring less of the load. Changing oil height or weight to quicken the progressive nature leaving the metal spring stock will result in the suspension working against it's self shortening the service life and giving false feedback to whats happening at the ground. Changing the sag setting using pre-load is also a no no this will simply move the working range of a spring meaning it might top out on rebound. In short if you aren't getting enough feedback from the ground start by changing the stock spring with a straight rate spring.
Correction I meant bottom out not top out. Going back to original question is no, Chinese pre-load adjusters are a bad move.
http://www.racetech.com/page/title/Emulators-How They Work Good read about emulators and damper rod front suspension for anyone who is interested.
