OK I am sooooooo stooooopid... I have a habit of spouting theroies man... I hate myself.... Anyway... this is very GS related...
The alloy linkage on the 89 is crap... It dont fit a short clevise shock, and in actuality doesn't fit some long clevise shocks either cos they hit the swingarm. I yanked out the linkage from my parts 96... big hunk of steel... and guess what... It fits a short clevise shock just fine. I doubt if it will hit the swingarm cos the shock is smaller in dia and length. Better yet... it has ample room and strength to shave a little material off and make anything fit a bit better. OK so anyone that has a steel linkage bike (all 90+ bikes are steel) you literally have a un limited choice of shocks. Ok again more theories... Anyway... the 96 one seemed great... dont know if they changed it between 90 and 96 though... I am so sick of myself...
Anyway... Cool.
Srinath.

That worries me, I have an 89' and bougth a katana shock about 2 months ago but have not installed it yet. I hope it fits!
Mark

Well... Some people have fit them with no problem. Long clevise on the shock helps, but in my case the shock hit the swingarm on the back side (towards the wheel). My mystery shock (sling shot - 88 750 I think) fit easy, and so does the shock I have now a 94 GSXR 750. Try it and see.
Cool.
Srinath.

More   theories again?  :mrgreen:

Actually I've tried the same early 90's shock in two different bikes/frames and one fit ('91ish) and one didn't ('00)....


So I think (my    theory) that there are wide enough tolerances when they weld up the individual peices that make up the frame, swingarm, and linkage that some fit and some don't quite.

The fix of course is to just go at the linkage and inside of the swingarm with a grinder because the worse I've seen the interferance is only a couple of mms.


BTW - We still love you Seshadri, even if you are full of poop sometimes.
:kiss:

Yea... grind it... but the alloy linkage is not strong enough to take significant grinding though. A little is prolly OK, but the steel linkage will stand up to quite a bit of grinding, proving once again that the 89 is crap... BTW ... changed the oil, 10W40... lets see if the clunk at cold starting goes away... No stabiliser in it, plain oil only.
Cool.
Srinath.

SS,
we've had this debate before...welcome to the dark side.

Which debate... the linkage debate or the clunk debate... I dunno dark side... but that stoopid shiny thing is the sky is hurting my eyes...
Cool.
Srinath.

I have the alloy linkage and a short clevis Kat shock fit my bike fine.  In fact, I remember it was you at Fremont Cycle salvage that told me it would work fine also.

Yea I know I told you, but in my defence I thought everything will fit the alloy linkage/89 till I found out for myself just before made that first post. The long clevise ones fit the linkage, but hit the back of the swingarm hole. The B6 shock the guy had did that, then I try the short clevise one and it hits the linkage. After trying a few shocks I finally ended up with a GSXR 750 one the guy had and its a long clevise one and it fit fine and didn't hit anything. Then I pull the linkage from the 96 frame I have and to my surprise the short clevise shocks fit it just fine. I just think these things are so loose tolerances that there is huge variations with the different parts from bike to bike. Anyway glad it fits... Chances are they will fit but you could end up with the occassional clevise that is just a little shorter than the usual short clevise, and the linkage is just a bit thicker than the usual linkage that they dont fit. Happened in my case...
Cool.
Srinath.