betoney

New tires, chain and sprockets, and no right-angle valve stems??? They are the best $20 you can spend on your bike.

I cant imagine it getting any smoother. I was on a several hour ride the other day and one thing that kept getting my attention was how fluid and seamless the transmission felt. Shifting between gears was butter smooth and effortless, much nicer than my prior FZ1, and that shifted very nicely. I am relieved to hear that this swap doesn't increase the engine braking.

betoney: Please inform me, what is going to go wrong on that plugged tire at full throttle in the corner? Meaning riding at the pace you ride at.Red, Other than peace of mind, I have no idea what could happen to a plugged tire, and at 80+ mph, I don't want to find out. Call it paranoia or call it erring on the side of safety, when it happened, I was getting ready to leave for a week long road trip into N. Cali so I chose to replace it. I still have it in my garage, who knows, maybe I'm worrying about nothing and may still use it someday.

Last summer I put on a new set of Angel GT's and went out for a ride to scrub them in. I stopped to get gas and noticed a large nail in the new rear tire, after only 30 miles. I used my Dynaplug to plug the hole and continued on with my 300 mile ride. I usually ride fairly aggressively, but took it easy on the plugged tire. When I'm leaned over ripping through some flowing sweepers at 80-90+ mph, I have to have 100% confidence in my tires. Some will say they have a few thousand miles on a plugged tire, I personally don't want to chance it. I ordered a new tire when I got home that afternoon.

Reduced leverage ratio -

That's the device I was referring to, thanks.

After that is complete. I would then loosen the axle pinch bolts and "bounce" the front end to ensure there is no binding in the forks. That is the part that I am confused about. When I do this procedure, I don't remove or even loosen the axle, therefore it would be impossible to alter the wheel/ABS sensor alignment. All I am doing is effectively extending or compressing each fork leg by a few millimeters. Now, if I remove the wheel for any reason, I always use the procedure that Bruce described.

Bruce I guess I am completely missing the point. When I am adjusting the height of the fork in the triple clamps, I am moving the gold section only which doesn't touch the fender, the front wheel or the ABS sensor. With the bike on the center stand and the front wheel firmly on the ground, nothing is getting canted side to side as the axle is still in place, the only thing that is moving is the upper tube.

Here's an easy way to do it with the wheel/brakes on. First, remove the ABS sensor from the right side of the wheel (there will be times when the wheel/axle are not straight and the clearance to the ABS sensor is very tight & you don't want to damage it). Second, loosen right axle pinch bolt & axle nut, fender mounting bolts; you don't have to remove the axle. Third, take weight off front wheel (jack with towel under exhaust headers works fine). Fourth, completely loosen lower triple clamp pinch bolts. Take a business card and make markings on how much you want to raise the forks. Slightly loosen one upper triple clamp pinch bolt, grasp the fork, loosen the bolt enough to where it moves, and move the fork upward as far as it will go; it probably won't be 5mm. Snug the upper pinch bolt. Go to the other fork, loosen the upper pinch bolt & while grasping the fork & using your business card, slide this fork up to 5mm or whatever. Snug pinch bolt. Go back to first fork, grasp the fork tube, loosen that pinch bolt and using the marks on the business card make it the same as the other fork; and snug the pinch bolt. Torque the upper & lower pinch bolts to spec, tighten the front axle, remove jack, push the FJ off the centerstand [em]without using the front brake and pump the front end up and down several times to align the right fork tube. Torque the right axle pinch bolt, snug the fender bolts, re-install the ABS sensor, pump the brake lever. [strong]You're done.[/strong][/em] To do this procedure, there is NO reason to either elevate the front wheel off the ground or loosen/fiddle with ANYTHING below the triple clamps. You simply adjust one fork leg at a time, I always do it with the bike on the center stand. Loosen one leg and make height adjustments to your choosing (the other leg will hold the bike up) then tighten the pinch bolts and adjust the other leg to the same height. The entire process takes about 3 minutes, I use this procedure on all of my bikes and have even done it on the side of the road before. I have never had the front end out of alignment or had fork binding.

Before buying the FJ, I test rode the Versys 1000 several times and the assist clutch is NICE, lever pull is truly a 2 finger affair. I didn't try out the slipper feature, but if you have arm pain and an hour ride in commuter traffic this might be the answer for you. There are also devices that alter the leverage of the clutch pull which reduce the rate of pull.

A full season out of 1mm tread depth? Um, NNNNNNNnnnoooooooooooooooooooo!!! For safety's sake, change those out soon, DO NOT gauge tire wear by the odometer.

Yes, Eastern Oregon is a wonderland to ride, most of Oregon is infact. I will gladly trade tire life to be able to regularly ride there.

Peporter, thanks to both you and Bruceintucson, you guys gave me some great ideas for mounting the reservior.

I switched to Rizoma Ma005 bars. Narrower and slightly more rearward sweep. All of my controls are very tight, and as I said previously, I always remove the guide pins with a Dremmel and have never had any issues. I have never had Honda, but my brother owns a 919 and he has Renthal street bars and has never used the guide pins either. I suppose if they aren't 100% tight to your liking, you could line the bars with a single layer of electrical tape under the controls.

Thanks again to all who shared their advise and knowledge. I would probably still be out in the garage throwing tools without your help.

I can understand removing the indexing pin from the left control pod (given you state it still clamps "tightly") but what about the throttle housing pod? It would seem very "problematic" if the throttle housing rotated on the bars even a very small amount. Thx You don't need the alignment pins for any of your controls. Whenever I get a new bike, first thing I do is get new, comfortable handlebars, none of which have alignment holes drilled in them. I just use a Dremmel and remove the alignment pins, all of your controls have their own tightening screws. I have never understood why bikes come set up like this from the factory, why would I want to keep everything in only one position?

***UPDATE*** I was FINALLY able to get the shock installed... whew, what a pain in the A$$. 2.5 hours and a lot of skin removed from my knuckles getting the shock into the top mount. FWIW, when installing the shock, the ONLY way I could get it to fit was to install the rear bolt first then fiddle with the front. I spent forever initially getting the front mounted, only to find that when it is static, the linkage doesn't raise enough to fit the rear mount bolt, not even close. I wish I cold meet the engineer who designed this bike and ask why everything fits in a puzzle-like manner, then smack him upside the head.

Well, following the above advice, the stock shock came out no problem. That was the easy part, getting the new one in the upper mount has been impossible. Traxxion shipped the shock with no instructions, so does the shock mount with the reservoir hose coming out of the left or right? I cant get it to fit either way, but knowing if I am attempting it right or wrong would help. And finally where are you supposed to mount the reservoir? The hose seems way too long, its 15" from the elbow on top of the shock to the reservoir. When I mock it up in place, the hose goes way back behind the passenger peg mount with nothing to mount it to.

Thanks so much for the tip, its good to hear that the harness does move. I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees this as difficult to access, I was starting to feel extremely incompetent in my mechanical skills for something that should be very easy.

Okay, let's take a step back. Make sure you're getting to it from the right side of the bike. Right side, as you sit on it. This is what it looks like on mine. You might want to tape off that area of the frame to keep from scratching it up. Clint Yes, I can see the nut on the right side, its the bolt head on the left side that I cant access or even see. Once I remove the nut then I have to pull the bolt out from the left to remove the shock, but like I said, on the left side I cant move the wiring harness out of the way enough to even see the bolt head. It doesn't want to flex at all. Thanks again for your help.

The lower shock bolt was a pita, but I got mine out using the assortment of wrenches I had. I ended up using a both a box end and an open end. I could only get only get the nit to turn a very small amount, and worked from both the nut side (left) and the bolt head side (right). Installation went a lot smoother than removal. For the top shock bolt, I came in from the side through the frame as the others, but I had the benefit that my gas tank was removed to install some electrical accessories. I'm beginning to think that my only hope is to completely remove the tank to aid in access. Regardless what everyone says to just move the wiring to the side to access the top mount, I simply cant move them even a few millimeters, let alone enough to even see the bolt. I know that some say its a 15 minute procedure, but the only progress I made today was removing the lower dog bone bolt. I feel like a frickin' idiot, I finally gave up and threw all of my tools back in the tool box in frustration.

I just replaced my shock and it was fairly straight forward. Start with it on the center stand then remove the front bolt using a ratchet and extension. It fits just fine through the wiring. Just nudge it aside. Next, remove the middle dog-bone bolt through the hole in the swing-arm. Now, you can raise the swingarm up by placing a 2x4 under the rear wheel. Raise it up until you can get a ratchet and wrench on the lower shock bolt. Install the new shock attaching the front bolt first, then rear shock bolt, then dog bone. Clint So, the top bolt has to be removed first, that is the only way to get the swingarm to move enough? Because the lower shock bolt is one of the things still kicking my butt. The way I have been trying it, I have removed the lower dogbone bolt which allows the swingarm to be lowered slightly, only exposing the top half of the nut. There is simply no room to get the socket AND ratchet on there. I am using a standard depth socket, which has about 2-3mm clearance to the swingarm, without attaching the ratchet. I will try it your way, but I sure am having a hard time accessing either side of the top mount. The wiring harness simply doesn't want to flex or move at all. Thanks again for your help!

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but after reading through this and inspecting the bike for almost 30 minutes now, I cant understand how to remove one single bolt. I can access the lower dog bone nut, but there is zero clearance to get the bolt out. I cant access either side of the upper mount at all, both sides are obstructed by wiring and hoses that do not budge out of the way. And don't get me started on the lower shock mount, unless you have a 2" long wrench with zero leverage, there is zero access. I'm not even sure how they possibly assembled this bike. On my FZ1 I could remove and replace the shock in about 15 minutes. After wrenching on bikes for over 40 years and doing almost all of my own maintenance, I am thoroughly stumped with this bike.

Olympia, Wa - 2015 Candy Red

2 Wheel Dyno Works A specific shout out goes to Nels and his outstanding customer support after the flash. I had a specific issue with the flash that I wasn't 100% happy about, so I sent him an email explaining my issue on Saturday evening, New Years Eve. I figured since it was the holiday he would be off and I wouldn't hear a reply until Tuesday. Well, 15 minutes later (almost 9pm Saturday evening) I get a reply with all sorts of suggestions on things to try to fix my issue. Since it was dark and well below freezing outside, I didn't get around to following his suggestions until the following morning. I again emailed him my results and asked him if he had any other course of action. Sure enough, within a few minutes he replied (Sunday, New Years Day, during the game... does he ever take time off?) and offered even more expert knowledge. Problem fixed and the bike runs silky smooth now. Nels took the time, I presume on his day off, to help a customer with technical advice in a very timely and professional manner. I cant express enough thanks.