blown shock?

[anticoriolis]

Hey guys... I'm so freaking fed up with my GS. Cracked cam caps, shift shaft seal, gaskets, clutch, rear tire, blown fork seals all in 1 year since I bought it. And now, I think I blew my rear shock today. Can someone confirm?

I was out on a sort of long ride but not carving it up too much, lots of traffic. It was really hot, about 90. Rode all day and thought the back end felt like it was bobbing a bit and now that I'm parking it up there's some oil on the ground under the shock and looking at it the shock & spring are completely coated with oil. Think it's blown.

I commute on my bike so I've been having a great shop do all the work but to be honest, I don't think I can afford to have them do this too. If it's IS blown, does anyone know how hard it is to replace the rear shock? Do I need a spring compressor? Is there a DIY on this someplace that you know of? And can you suggest a bang-for-your-buck upgrade? If I'm replacing it I may as well not put something squishy back on there....

Thanks

[Mdow]

GS shocks are cheap here on the board i wouldn't say more then 35 shipped. might sell you mine but i think a kid in town needs it

[Bluesmudge]

Sounds blown to me. Were you able to ride it home fine? I was able to nurse a blown shock for 5 months until I got a Katana shock installed. It was springy as hell and made me hate riding my bike but it was okay as long as I drove conservatively.
You can probably find somebody on the board to send you a rear shock for the price of shipping but I recommend you pick up a Katana rear shock to replace the blown one, its so much better.
The shock replacement is really easy. Put the bike on the center stand, unscrew and remove a couple of bolts, lift swing arm a bit, shock drops out, put in new shock.
As long as you have basic tools you can do it yourself no problem!

[anticoriolis]

Whew. Thats great news, thanks. What should I know about finding a katana shock to replace mine? Are there certain years I should be looking for? Should I be wary of buying one used in case IT is blown too?

[edit]
Does this look like it would work?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1990-Suzuki-GSX600-GSX-600-Katana-rear-shock_W0QQitemZ250406769440QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMotorcycles_Parts_Accessories?hash=item250406769440&_trksid=p4506.m20.l1116

[rylon]

I know I have a stock shock, maybe two, in the garage with your name on it if you are willing to cover shipping to wherever you are.  Let me know. rylonjerome (at) gmail (dot) com

[The Buddha]

With shocks of a "certain age" ... especially cos its been hanging out under some guy's bike ... I open em, clean and test them ...

Anyway Kat shock - I have one last one that is intact, and one that is apart and at the powderplace waiting for someone to call a color for it ... $85 and shipping for a black body, and spring+collar of your color choice and $40 and shipping for the non powdercoated+painted one.

Shipping on either is 10.35 USPS priority mail.

I also have some other shocks which I am testing. But a kat 6/7 shock is proven great for a GS.

BTW GS shock is crap and I am surprised any one can even tell when its blown ...

Cool.
Buddha.

[Bluesmudge]

Lol, yeah. That's why I could ride the blown one. Not too much worse than stock!
Katana is so much better, it would be worth it to pay the $50.35 and get one from the buddha instead of another stock shock. Its up to you though.

[joshr08]

if your replacing i vote buddha shock i got the kat 750 and love it.

[anticoriolis]

Thanks for all the help guys, this board is awesome. Would love to buy one of your shocks Buddha. The un-powder coated one if thats cool, I'm stretched a bit thin at the moment! I'll PM you for details?

One other question I had, sooort-of hijacking my own thread, but I read that replacing the rear shock with a stiffer one will make your fork seem even softer, and my fork seals are shot. I'm thinking of going to progressive springs, would rather have heavy single-rate springs but SF streets are pretty chopped up. Does that logic make sense? Would I be happier just going for sonic .85kg/mm springs? I weigh about 190, how do you pick which springs work for your weight?

I think the rear shock I'll do myself but I'm a bit daunted by taking my fork off, I don't want to disable my commuter longer than a weekend... thats a bit of a tough job right?

[Bluesmudge]

The rear is super fast. Maybe 2 hours if you don't know what you are doing and have all the necessary tools.

Changing the fork springs is really easy if you are not replacing the fork oil. I'm about 180# and got the sonic .90 but didn't replace the fork oil. It felt real good but once I put on the Kat shock I could tell the dampening or something just wasn't right in the forks. Yesterday I took the forks off and completely drained them of the 17,000 mile old oil that hard turned to a sort of black snot/cottage cheese consistency and then filled with fresh 15w fork oil 5.3" from the top fully compressed. I also added one of Buddha's thick fork braces.
What a difference! I would say the fork oil is more important than the spring. Now my suspension finally feels correct when I go over bumps, nice and smooth!

The front end took me about 5 hours. I knew what I was doing and worked fast but I also don't have a centerstand on my bike to get the weight off the front so I take my exhaust off and use a bike jack 
You could probably shave an hour off that if you have a naked bike with centerstand. Then add an hour if you don't know what you are doing.

[The Buddha]

Now you all know why 90% of the damn GS is replaced 1 bit at a time ...
Front suspensions ... I might as well fess up, I've experimented very very little with stock and only slightly more with kat ... So here is the observations of a novice.
Yes swapping the rear will make the front feel much more crappeeeee ...

The Progressive+oil+seal+ this and that ... bandaid on cancer. It feels stiff anf un nattural and flexes more cos a longer fork is less stiff ... depends on cube of length right, so double the length and it feels 1/8th as stiff.
I'd throw in an extra 2-3 inch spacer instead of any spring/oil/seal work ... and mod to kat FE when you can, all the rest is $$$ down the drain.

However ... anyone that has done work on the stock and has improved it for real can contradict me, I know very little.

FWIW, lindemann did a decent job on my 89 back in 95, the shock travelled almost as much as stock but was in effect slower to compress and faster to open back up. AKA they bumped up the compression damping, and cranked down the rebound damping. Can it be replicated ... not without sacrificing a lot of forks I'd guess. Now I also weighed 30-50lb less then, didn't ride as hard and was in a location with better roads I wanna say. I also was clueless about decent suspensions.

I really am leaning to this method of thinking. Find a part off a bike 1-2 sizes up ... its crappeee for it, but works right for you.

Anticoriolis - were we PM'ing a few months ago about a head ... I ask cos Ry_guy had good results with that head I had my guys do, and that means I could have them do it for more people ... I wanna encourage people who have taken chances with bike and specifiically GS stuff ... cos as you know, it often takes 4-5 auto parts store managers to screw in a light bulb on a GS.
Cool.
Buddha.

[anticoriolis]

Man, I'm going back and forth on this. I'm really worn out spending money on my gs, it's about a $4k bike now and I could have bought a pretty nice SV for that, and probably put no work in... it can be a project when it's not my commuter, but for right now I kinda need it to get around! Taking the bus in SF B-L-O-W-S which is what got me into bikes in the first place.

If I have a shop do springs, replace the seals and the oil and set preload it's probably going to be a $300+ job, but I lose no riding time. I could pick up a Katana FE for $500 http://www.motoyard.com/Motorcycle-Parts/Body-Frame/Frame-Subframe/COMPLETE-front-end-for-2005-Suzuki-Katana-_423064.item
But it sounds like a winter project I'd be starting right at the beginning of summer riding  Doesn't sound like a straightforward bolt-in, would need to modify / mount the gauges, headlight brackets, ignition, controls, etc etc etc. The type of stuff that ends up with the bike sitting for a few weeks while I sweat it out in a homeless man's armpit on the bus.

Buddha what's the fork brace that blue was talking about? Would that help with the flex you mentioned? I'm still a pretty new rider I wonder if I'd be happy with stiffer springs / more preload / heavier oil or even just not-blown-out forks. I've only had this one bike and I don't have anything to compare it to yet, are you pretty happy with your setup Blue? I think I may have to go the budget route for now.

About the head:
I looked back through my PM history Buddha and I'm not sure if I ended up with yours? My memory is a bit foggy. I bought one from someone on here that arrived with cam caps & buckets missing and had to return it to them, cracked cam caps were the issue in the first place. I bought an '01 head from a salvage yard in Santa Barbara that seems to be working out fine. I remember PMing with you saying you were going to sell the 3 angle valved head to Ry_guy and I think he bought it? At the time I had all my fingers crossed that he was going to fumble it and I could buy yours, that valve job sounded pretty nice!

[Bluesmudge]

Fork Brace. Some talk about it here:
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=47576.0
The for-sale post:
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=45111.0

Dunno if its worth the $$ in your position. I installed it at the same time as new oil so its hard for me to tell what is making most of the difference, but I'm guessing its the oil. The brace will help most under hard braking. It also takes unnecessarily long to install for something that seems so simple, I wouldn't do it unless you were already replacing your fork oil.

I'm very happy with my "bargain" settup. Its nice because you can do it one step at a time as you feel comfortable spending the money (took me half a year to do all my suspension stuffs) and everythin is bolt on/drop in. I've never ridden a GS with a Kat front end, and all I have to compare to is a DR650, and DRZ400 and an old BMW. Compared to those its by far the best street bike I've ever ridden lol, but I can't say how it compares to other sport bikes.
It is about 100000% better than stock and I can't imagine how it would feel if it was better than it is now.

It sounds like you don't have the time or money for the Kat front end. I feel ya, I commute on my GS too so all my work on it has to be done within a few hours or during the weekend.

[The Buddha]

Blue - brace takes away the sensation of wanting to pull left under braking.
The longer your fork legs the stronger that sensation. So stiffer springs will exacerbate it, brace will prevent it, mind you its a tight dance, cos its not like it will throw you into a left hand turn ... anyway ... hard to tell when you mod 50 things at once, but nothing like getting all the damn things done in one trashy weekend and then riding on ...
Anti - Yea on the head last year, I now remember something like that.
Brace may ... may not ... help a little/lot. How's that for non committal.

And an 05 katana isn't what I call suitable or even good for a GS. Its got the slider pin single action calipers as well as a top triple that cannot be used to fit the guages no matter what. 89-95 katana 600 only. So dont even bother with 05 nothing. 89-95 kat 600 only. I'd do a stem job for it and the carriers for guages ... very straightforward. Its by no means the best FE there is, but there is a fine line between best and ease of fit and maintenance. You could buy a lamborghini, however you dont want to kill yourself working for it and you want to get to work on time everyday right. If that means you buy a toyota, well you buy a toyota.
Fine if a GS 500 is the toyota, you're now working on fitting mercedes seats into your toyota.
Cool.
Buddha.