Top 10 Dirt Bike Suspension Tips Do's & Don'ts

in this video we're going to show you guys the top 10 suspension troubleshooting tech tip do's and don'ts what's up guys my name is Tyler legacy within my expectorate this is doc with eight one two suspension design today we're going to show you guys 10 very common mistakes and/or good things that we do when we ride dirt bikes becomes a suspension here's tip number one common question we're always asked about the leading the fork because how often I do it we recommend that you do it before every ride while the bike is on the stand I always like to wear eye protection there's always a chance that when you're bleeding the fork oil dirt Tyler what are you doing when's the last time you bled your Forks to crack the bleeder you don't need to take the screw all the way out just simply undo the bleeder verify that you have a ring in place and simply tighten your bleeder down I see a lot of times people putting a lot of torque on that just hand tight as you can see I'm doing a quarter turn the second tech tip is how to set the sag there's a lot that we could cover the important key points there of setting the sag is you're consistent you're doing it in your riding gear you're standing in a standing position we actually have a sag video that we've done so if you want to go into a little more detail with that check out the link below and we got all the goods there tip number three adjusting your clickers this is a 2017 at Husqvarna FC 450 it's a separate function fork you got an air spring on one side compression in rebound valving all on one side to adjust the clicker you're gonna turn the clicker all the way in clockwise now we're adjusting the clicker we're gonna open this up to 10 and then rebound set it 18 there's a screw on the bottom and we're counting the clicks again we're turning the clockwise bottoming out the clicker and then we're opening it up 18 here we have a piston valving in a needle closing off on orphis so we're turning clockwise to bottom out this needle and then we're opening up our desired number of clicks on Tyler's case 10 at the top 18 at the bottom what is happening with a needle is we're metering the amount of oil that is going through that orphis here's a couple different types of Forks doesn't matter if it's open chamber closed chamber 4cs KYB Showa they all pretty much work the same we're gonna set the adjuster to ten we're turning the adjuster screw clockwise we're gonna open up to ten and here's a rebound adjuster for this set of forks we're gonna open that up to 18 tension rebound they're synonymous 4cf same thing positive I'm closing the orifice negative I'm opening the Orcas same thing with rebound closed chamber WP bladder for compression at the top sometimes you'll find these little rubber stoppers at the bottom and there's our rebound adjuster clockwise closed counterclockwise open same thing with the shock closing it clockwise and open it counterclockwise this slows down and speeds up how fast the shock shaft is moving on a shock the brass adjuster screw is at the center this is your low speed adjuster I'm gonna open this up to 10 the 17 millimeter nut is your high speed adjuster now high speed adjuster is how fast the shock shaft is moving velocity of the shock shaft so I look at it as how fast the velocity is moving high speed hit the square-edged bump the braking bump the acceleration bump I'm gonna close this we're gonna open this up what I like to do is just kind of orient my t handle and we're gonna open this up two turns again low speed clicks high speed turns moving on to another shock rebound adjuster at the bottom I'm going to open this up to ten a separate type of adjuster this is compression low speed compression high speed tension low speed tip number four is alignment of the four tubes what we're talking about is the relationship between the left in the right fork tube this Fork is not properly aligned then we got some rock there you can see at the bottom that our axial pinch bolt is compressing the pork and they're not parallel to each other to align the front end torque the left side of the bike air axle is already torqued triple tree bolts are already torqued in the front tire all we're simply of doing is aligning the front end of the bike we generally do this three times on the third time we're certain that our front fork tubes are lined while a brake is pressed in we're simply going to torque our axle pinch bolts tip number five is your fork height the main thing is is that you have the fork height equal on the left and the right side raising in lowering the fork in the triple tree is changing the weight bias the rake in the trail of the bike in a high speed setting we may have our fork cap flush with the top triple clamp in a technical Rudy rocky enduro setting we may have our Forks up in the triple tree and that's gonna allow us to negotiate tighter turning radiuses hole little tip or trick is obviously not everyone has a set of calipers in their toolbox you can get a simple alligator clip put some pennies on that alligator clip throw that in your toolbox generally most bikes like to be settled and balanced around five to seven millimeters depending on what type of writing that you're doing if we're doing high-speed desert we're gonna move the forks down in the triple tree and when I say down in the triple tree we may put the fork tube flush here we can see that this generally has about three pennies width which is 4.1 millimeters if I was in the high-speed setting I would put one penny on it 1.3 millimeters moving the forks down in the triple tree we're gonna set the torque specs on this bike is 12 Newton meters on the bottom triple tree bolts and then 17 Newton meters on the top key component there is getting your torque spec correct here is what right looks like and as soon as I put my buddy's wrench on it what happens is they're talking about riding dirt bikes and they torque it and then they recheck it and they torque it again and now what I've created is stiction and friction this can be measured and it can be felt so right now the fork will not go past this point because it is stopping that inner and outer bushing from sliding through the top tube yeah it would just fall down freely the tip number six is pressure washing the bike you want to stay directly away from the linkage pivot bolts and when your towel arpad 45-degree angle downward never want to spray up at an angle getting past the dust seal or oil seal all that's gonna occur as you're gonna accumulate water and moisture inside the fork itself tip number seven is storage and transport of a bike storage of the bike we like the store bikes on a stand it just relieves the pressure on the seal when we're strapping down the bike we like to have the bike equally strapped in on the both the left and the right doesn't matter where you strap as long as it's the same on each side I always just pulling out at the same time but if you can't be in front of them yeah this nice little snug snug not too much not too little your little equal to hole in the wall too much equals blown fork seals you have to go back this whole process with dock again please no no no we're not a fan of tipping the bike sideways the only thing that happens with tip in the bike sideways is you're making the seal kind of egg-shaped it promotes leaking of seals which is what we do not want also when you're transporting for a long time when the bike is cinched down simply crack the bleeder gets the pressure out of there when you go out for your initial ride you're gonna put the bike on the stand and rhe crack your bleeders okay tip number eight I want to talk a little bit about something that may not be your suspension you may feel like the bike is super harsh or like the bike is washing and it could all be right inside this tire what you want to do is make sure that you have proper air pressure in your tires I personally liked around in between 12 and 13 on the tracks around here depending where you are in the world that's gonna vary but it won't bear more than a couple pounds of pressure what you don't want to do is put 25 or 30 pounds of pressure in your tire because it's gonna make the bike feel extremely stiff and harsh and just like it's not floating through like you'd like it to tip number nine we recommend servicing your suspension every 30 to 50 hours after 30 to 50 hours what happens is the oil develops some polymers here it has stiction and friction and it changes how the performance of the bike feels changes compression and rebound damping the reason that we're recommending 30 to 50 hours is this is an aluminum stanchion tube and these are bushings this bushing has a Teflon coating on it and if that Teflon coating wears away what happens is it starts to eat away at the aluminum on the outer tube here's what it looks like this is just after probably about 60 hours worth of riding and if you look at this real close you may get to see a little bit of aluminum particle in there see how it's kind of shiny and this is what it looks like 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 once you get into a 35 40 hour range you're really doing damage to the component itself tip number 10 is riding position rider input a lot of times it's not your suspension that is causing the problems yes he's totally correct there so if you haven't taken the time to properly learn how to put your body weight in the right spots at the right time no matter what suspension you have it isn't gonna work like you would like it to so an imbalance in body position at any point is going to affect the suspension just like when I a couple inches on the stand the bike tips back and puts weight on the back hand and lightens the front front end load the same things happening every time you go into any part of the track if you're too far one way or the other that is the suspension is gonna feel the direct effects of where you're at all right guys we hope you really enjoy the top 10 do's and don'ts for setting your bike suspension up if you liked it there's more videos over here if you loved it subscribe down here and don't forget to check out eight one two suspension design Instagram right here he's actually pretty good at the jump oh you guys are both musical in this video you guys are know how to play guitar and sing on a dirt bike

Channel: The Mx Factory

Views: 374,877

Rating: 4.9043255 out of 5

Keywords: dirt bike suspension, dirt bike suspension tuning, dirt bike suspension setup, dirt bike suspension explained, motocross suspension setup, motocross suspension tuning, motocross suspension, tuning dirt bike suspension, dirt bike tech tips, motocross tech tips, how to adjust dirt bike suspension, how to setup suspension on a dirt bike, dirt bike front wheel alignment, dirt bike front suspension setup, dirt bike rear suspension, motorcycle suspension tuning, the mx factory, mx, ktm

Id: _B4zb2dfijw

Length: 13min 55sec (835 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 18 2018