Suspension and skid help - suspension sagging?

MichaelAngelo

Member
Joined
Oct 31, 2020
Messages
50
Location
Barrie
The sled is a 2000 Yamaha venture.

If not following my journey, the short summary is that I noticed cracked skid rails after buying and so I replaced the entire skid. In the process and to prevent this from happening again, I also changed the shocks and these are the original coil springs put onto Kimpex cheap gas shocks.

Both the front and back shock behaved the same when tested out of the sled, very hard to compress and slow to rebound. Figured that's what they're supposed to behave like? But never done this before so unsure.

The previous owner had the coil springs cranked almost all the way down, and so I left them both relatively loose 3/4 of the way out.

Skid went back into the sled and immediately noticed it's much more compressed with even just the weight of the sled. When I lift the back to get it on the dolly it will sit higher like this picture shows:

E7l5vGe.jpg


But if I put any weight on it it will collapse down to this point here and not go back up to fully extended as in the first picture.

cjRzFNh.jpg


I have to take the skid out again anyways because I forgot a washer behind the front W arm bushing and so I might as well solve whatever is going on here.

From my complete inexperience I'm thinking along the lines of a) the original coil springs are completely fatigued and/or B) 3/4 of the way out is way too loose and the spring isn't giving enough resistance to support the weight on it

Thanks again for all the help guys - it's been an ADventure lol!
 
Last edited:

I would set the main spring with driver weight on it so the gap on the transfer rod is either even or 25% on bottom and 75% more on top side. The transfer rods are on each side of the skid attached to the rear part of the rail. More gap on top will allow for more small bump absorption before it couples the skid. As far as the front skid shock, I would take all of the spring preload off with the suspension hanging, then tighten the jamb nuts until it just touches the spring then do one full turn.
 
I just had shocks rebuilt on my '98 vmax and I'm having the same issue, no rebound beyond last couple inches of travel. Will sit high when lifting but putting any weight on the seat it goes down almost all the way and doesn't come back up when I get off. Was the shock rebuild no good? Springs are set to factory preload distance.
 
I just had shocks rebuilt on my '98 vmax and I'm having the same issue, no rebound beyond last couple inches of travel. Will sit high when lifting but putting any weight on the seat it goes down almost all the way and doesn't come back up when I get off. Was the shock rebuild no good? Springs are set to factory preload distance.

Could be a bad rebuild. Are you sure you springs are set correct for your weight and the suspension is greased and freely moving.
 


Back
Top