about a month back I got a blown fox shock from marmaladeboy and dropped it by go-race.com to get rebuilt and revalved. Well it just got done yesterday morning and I had an appointment to get it installed in the afternoon. WELL. I went out to my bike and noticed a disgustingly huge piece of wire in my rear tire... And... it was flat as can be


Something's missing.... can't quite put my finger on it


Can clearly see the hole from here

close up of it


New tires are gooooooooooood. Wish they grew in fields though and didn't cost $160 mounted per for a new rear pilot power. I got lucky though cause normally it'd take awhile to get mounted but I know the general manager and he hooked me up. he made sure it got done today and done right away. Was in and out in about 20 minutes. Most of the time was spent gawking at his new gixxer750 though. It's in the black paint scheme and man oh man it's a sick looking bike. He said it's disgustingly fast and well he's used to riding the brand new 1000rr too so it must be real nice for him to say that. Nice bike though I wish there were more 750's around cause I'm not a suzuki fan at all. Anyways!


All better. this was my first time removing the rear and I didn't curse and swear as much as I thought I would... once I got it propped up it wasn't too bad.


So I swung by the go-race.com guys after getting the new rear tire mounted to check out my shock. Looks good and I'm pumped to get it on. So I'm going by in the morning to get it installed though I have to leave not long after to head home for a few days... I'm hoping to get back in time to ride this weekend with my friends since I'm then moving again in a week. Tire is partially scrubbed in but needs a lil more before going all out. Anyways my neverending saga of bad luck has continued but hopefully will be offset with a job offer on Friday at my interview in Baltimore. I'll post more pics of it tomorrow before I head out.

 

You're going to post pics of your job interview...??? :P

Looks like things are turning around for ya. Good to hear. Best of luck with the shock!

 

I hope so (turning around that is). That's on Friday so I gotta drive 400 miles home tomorrow. fun fun. It'll be way better if I get this job that's for sure. That'd mean I can get some stuff fixed and upgraded that I've been putting off. Tire couldn't wait though. Not too happy about having to do that. I had a good 3000 miles left in it easy

 

Ok first time I went to get it installed I had a flat so had to wait and fork out money for a new rear pilot power :thumbdown: Well this morning I woke up nice and early to ride into Go-Race.com to get it installed. No flat tires this time :P


Well when I first got there we had to decide how on earth are we going to do this because this beast was taking the only stand:




eww what's this


Turbo busa with around 500whp beast of a bike.


Well with that taking up that space we decided to hang my hawk from the cieling which would give them enough room to drop the shock and have the swingarm drop


With that done removing the stock shock was surprisingly simple :thumbup:
Here's my superhawk after he went limp :P



With the old one out it was time to compare old vs new. man the old one was at least 5 lbs heavier in addition to sucking ballz compared to the new fox shock which I had revalved and rebuilt for me :thumbup:



Well with that out he went to put the new one in AND!! guess what? it didn't fit.... :crook: took it back out and we measured the bushings... the fox shock bushings were 2mm too wide at the top and 1mm too wide at the bottom... :thumbdown: Luckily for me they had a lathe. If I even had the garage to do the install this is one place I would've been S.O.L. Well while he was doing the lathe I went out into the showroom for a few and checked out these two gems.

Older ducati (I dunno what model cause I know nothing about ducati's other then it looked pretty cool :P )


And this cool aprilia 50


Anyways... Once he had the bushings done it fit right in except for clicker... This is another spot where it was good to do it at the shop. It wouldn't fit on the right side of the bike because the shock is offset slightly to the right side of the bike and the hose was too long and on the left side it was going to be turned the wrong way... So Travis the owner took it and flipped the hose around so it'd fit. YAY!! Well we got it on and now it was time to setup everything. We set free sag, sag with rider, and also ride height... Right now the sag is off cause well the spring isn't quite strong enough for fluffly ol me... :P It gives me a goal though to get down to so the spring will match me perfectly. We set the sag as good as we could though. We also raised the rear about 15mm from stock ride height. I didn't want to go higher because I didn't want to risk making it go unstable. Stock the hawk absolutely does not need a damper. I don't think at the current setting it will either but a lil more and I probably will want to throw one on to be safe.

On the ride home it felt like a whole new bike. It seemed to just drop right into turns, held wheelies like noones business :P and the rear was a lot more stiff unlike the stock piece of crap. I only got about 20 miles in on the ride home and not to hard since my rear still isn't fully scrubbed in :thumbdown: Here's the final pics of the install. The shock + install ended up coming in around $500 including what I paid marm for it. Not bad though considering it feels like a whole new bike. :thumbup:








I had to leave town for a job interview in the morning in Baltimore so I'm hoping I get back into town and get to rip it up this weekend. Anyways. Thanks for looking!

oh btw pardon the large amount of run on sentences and rambling on. lol. I just got home and while my stuff is in the wash I decided to post this :P

 

Good luck with the job interview!!!!

 

if I get it ALL YOUR BASE BELONGS TO ME!!! lol aka I want your rearsets in addition to the track plastics im hoping for it