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What a joke!!!! I just called Arlen Ness and told them about my problem and they told me that about 1 in 100 bikes have this problem and my ride is one of these problem bikes i guess. They then told me to put heavy weight fork oil in and i told them i had it in already. Then silence on the phone and then they swithced me to another tech which told me to cut PVC pipe from Home Depot at 1" pieces and permanetly install them on top of my springs. Any one ever heard of this? I wonder if i call progressive will they tell me that 1 in 100 of thier springs fail in bikes? I hope not?...Good Luck to all you guys with those piece of crap ness dampners. And yes they are CRAP!!!
Short lengths of PVC are old school tech to increase spring preload. Low tech, but works and is very cheap. Get a couple of feet of PVC pipe and cut 2 pieces at 1/2", 2 @ 3/4" and so forth. You can play with the amount of preload until the ride is right. What I don't understand is their advice to use heavier oil. A heavier weight fork oil will slow down the first compression (bump), but it will also slow down the recovery (rebound). On a rough road the rebound gets behind the compression far enough and pretty soon you are locked down at the bottom. What increasing the preload will do is reduce your static sag (free compression of the springs that happen when the bike isn't moving). I'm not sure how increasing preload will fix a damping problem.
Unfortunately stock Harley's are equipped with only marginal suspension. Lowering one of them by reducing suspension travel is not normally going to improve the ride. Good luck.
Just seems like technology has progressed some since the '60s.
Technology has come a long way since the '60s. Motorcycle technology has come a long way also. However, a 2009 set of Harley Glide forks has it's spring preload altered exactly the same was as they did in 1949. The attached link to Progressive Suspension's article on using their springs (excellent items) with PVC shims has some illustrations that should make thier use and value apparent.
I've had Progressive springs on the Train for about 30k now and they are getting soft.I used the Race Tech e-valve with this also.Good for 20k or so and started noticing the front end getting loose.Gonna go with Patriot Suspention double springs this time.I used thier springs in the Sportster I just build.Very smooth with almost zero front end dip at hard braking.Definately better ride than the Train when it was new.G.
Wait, you're going to put PVC PIPE in an active-handling part of your motorcycle? lol
lol.............we can tell you never had the front end of a cycle apart before..........its a spacer on top of the fork spring the more you cut off the more sink in the front the more you add the stiffer it is
lol.............we can tell you never had the front end of a cycle apart before..........its a spacer on top of the fork spring the more you cut off the more sink in the front the more you add the stiffer it is
Well, I did put the Showas on my bike nut no, I didn't take them apart to do it. They come from the factory ready to race.
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