Spring rate, ODS, GDT, & Animal horror story

[w2zero]

I was going through some springs last night to determine the rates.   Pulled one from my 855 rear that had a top-out clunk.  Put the spring on the shipping scale on the drill press, set the quill at 1" and ran the table up to contact.  Pulled the quill down to zero and the scale indicated 250#.   A little light for me but the only 300# rear spring will have to go on the bike I am building.

Then for s&g decided to open up the ODS shock.  This is a new shock and only had maybe 10 miles on it.  The oil was muddy looking though clean.  Almost looked like crank case oil with coolant leaked into it.  Dumped that and searched for any single weight oil in my stash.  Then figured what the hell, drag racers are campaigning 1000 hp cars with Mobil-1 synthetic motor oil as transmission fluid because of the anti foaming qualities......  I set the depth gauge to the spec for a rear ODS, 2", and filled it.  Reassembled it but it back on the strut, cut a chunk of 5mm allen wrench to put in the 5mm socket so I could use my 1/4" drive torque wrench to get it right.  Back on the bike and guess what??  No clunk!  Hope it remains quiet.  Upon pulling the rest of them apart, same situation on the oil, ugly mucky looking brown.  The Mobil 1 is 5-30 that I use in all my vehicles so if it works, one less container to read.

The GDT shock was another ebay find after buying three ODS shocks for my 855 conversion.  It was relatively cheap and nobody else was bidding on it.  The shaft was slightly bent but  I chucked it up in the lathe and straightened it.  It may find a home in the carbon link Noleen fork that was a local craigslist find.  My evil plan is to have the 856 style fork on the 855 and the carbon fork on the 856 Beast. 

I picked up the 856 Animal on Craigslist locally for 250 USD. What wasn't immediately apparent to my limited perception was the frame being a large.   On the plus side it had all the parts I needed for a second bike for relatives or friends should they visit.  Thanks to one  of our sterling idriders I did find a medium sized 856 Beast frame and swing arm to make it all fit.  It arrived Fed-Ex Tuesday and I hustled out to the shop for the unveiling.  The colors are even better in person.  Replaced the stripped Animal on the bike stand with the Beast and stripped it.  Put the Animal in the shipping box and leaned it up against the 1964 Fairlane that lives in the garage too. 

Last night (Wednesday) I was doing all the above spring and shock ordeals and remembered that there were two water bottle bolts still in the Animal frame.  Went to retrieve them and couldn't find the box where I left it.  Not an unfamiliar occurrence since I am on the other side of sixty so much searching and thrashing about ensued.  The box just wasn't to be found.  I save good boxes just for ebay shipping.  Usually they are out in the little shed I built to keep the weather, raccoons, opossums and foreign spies off the recycle bins & garbage cans. I finally asked the wife about the bike box in the garage.  You know, the garage where she adds or removes nothing.  The man-cave where the piles of crap are sacrosanct because they represent a neanderthal filing system that has worked, sporadically, for hundreds of thousands of years.  Where she can park her Jeep only because we are related through our children and I am especially fond of our grandchildren. Where she can stack groceries on the boot of the Fairlane if she first spreads a blanket on it.  Wait for it.......    it's ugly in the extreme.....  Ooooooohhhh the humanity......

                                                                     The spousal unit recycled the box.

                                                                 The large Animal frame was in the box.

                                     Killing her is illegal, she has a lot of excellent qualities, I'd never get away with it.

[orange]

 

[shovelon]

  The man-cave where the piles of crap are sacrosanct because they represent a neanderthal filing system that has worked, sporadically, for hundreds of thousands of years.  Where she can park her Jeep only because we are related through our children and I am especially fond of our grandchildren. Where she can stack groceries on the boot of the Fairlane if she first spreads a blanket on it.  Wait for it.......    it's ugly in the extreme.....  Ooooooohhhh the humanity......

                                                                     The spousal unit recycled the box.

                                                                 The large Animal frame was in the box.

                                     Killing her is illegal, she has a lot of excellent qualities, I'd never get away with it.

Are you rationalizing there? 

Eeny-Meeny-Miny-Mo, HMMMMM

[w2zero]

The excellent qualities won out.  Plus, I wouldn't be eligible for parole any time soon. 

[Tel]

The excellent qualities won out.  Plus, I wouldn't be eligible for parole any time soon.
 

We ride old odd bikes and can get away with anything!! If I turned up at my bike club tomorrow morning with a dead nun sticking out of the front grill, big drama, get out the Proflex suddenly nobody notices the nun any more.
Cheers, Tel.

[w2zero]

Nun or a penguin, hard to tell....  they can be vicious little beggars either way.

[Thunderchild]

959 minutes of silence for the fallen Animal 

Thunderchild

[w2zero]

Oops, have to retract the "lack of klack" on the rear ODS.  It is quiet over bumps loaded but has all the subtlety of the action on an AK-47 when the suspension is completely unloaded.  Brake ripples on a dirt road sound like full automatic.

[w2zero]

Checked the shock pivot bolt last night and found that I had replaced the old one with an original ProFlex bolt.  Whipped out the very-near calipers and discovered that the stock bolt is a much smaller diameter than higher quality bolts that are unplated.  That was easily discernable upon changing back to the older bolt.  These are both off-the-shelf bolts so the threaded portion is too long and adds to the problem.  I will be stopping by the local metric only fastener store to buy a 6mm bolt that is aprx 25mm longer and cut off the excess threads.  That will tighten it up quite a lot more.  Also there is a variation in the inner and outer diameters of the pivot sleeves. 

Not sure if that was an indication of the lack of QA or what.  Measured three tapered shock mount adapters and two were longer on the short end.  That results in  the lower spring plate not contacting the top of the strut.  I'll be turning the other two down a bit.  Also searching my stash for some small billet to turn some tighter clearance shock pivots too. 

[shovelon]

You have the Knack for Lack of Clack.

[fyrstormer]

Killing her isn't illegal *everywhere*. I hear the Middle East is nice this time of year.

[w2zero]

Nahh, my spousal unit has a lot of earthquakes to cause yet.   

 Dug up a stashed seal kit to begin rebuilding the fork today.  The bag with the fork seal rings & bushings and the swingarm pivot bushings still had the sales slip in it.  20 bucks for all of the stuff to rebuild.  Thought that was high at the time.  Not so bad now.

[jazclrint]

Everywhere I've lived you have had to breakdown the cardboard boxes before they will accept them.  Surely someone has found the frame. 

[w2zero]

Yes and I'm sure they said "thank you Larry" when they found it.  (Larry is the patron Tiki god of people what needs stuff)

 Meanwhile, I'm rebuilding the front wheel since the previous owner shouldn't have had tools or had a LBS that was full of BS.  For that matter, I'm rebuilding everything on both my bikes.