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Hey all, just got my ohlins today and getting ready for install. Already called Howard once tonight, almost 10pm his time and he still answered...so don't want to wake him up. His directions say to check swing arm alignment. Will I need to re-align the swing arm or does that get made up in the spacers when I install the shocks...assuming the swing arm isn't way out of whack. To check the swing arm alignment is that what your doing when you put the straight edge on the bolt per his directions?....for those of you familiar with his install. Thanks guys!
As I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong Howard), the shocks need to be absolutely plumb between the upper and lower mounts. When I installed my 2.5's, everything lined up perfectly so I didn't need to add any spacers. If yours are canted, you might need to add a washer/spacer. What you don't want to do, is to crank down the bolt to try and bring the shock into proper alignment. Hope this made sense.
It's coming from the JRi instruction manual on installation. The pictures are on page three. You can download it here: http://www.jrishocks.com/harleydavidson/. Press the "click here" under "view our installation manual". It looks like a video link, but it's actually a PDF download. The picture and procedures you want are on page 3.
Is this a valuable step? Well, the shocks have bushings in their ends designed to compensate for any misalignment, and they work very well. It also fails to address bent bolts and such, which actually makes the possible bind much worse. Look at their Figure 3 for example, if that bolt is bent, straightening it would be far better than stack of washers in the top bolt that they claim as a fix. Lastly, a stack of washers offsetting a shock reduces the engaged thread count and greatly increases the sheer load and bending moment on the bolt and mount.
To help clarify:
Last edited by foxtrapper; Feb 25, 2016 at 06:54 AM.
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Ohlins install swing arm alignment
