98 Venture 600 Rear suspension question

S

SoDakDave

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Dec 5, 2019
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Sioux Falls
Hello all. I'm new to this machine (and snowmobiles in general) and am trying to understand this rear suspension.


At the rear of the sled are the control arms on either side with bushings above and below the control arm. When I lift and settle the rear bumper, there's about an inch of space between the... lower control arm? and the bushing on the upper stop. If I put a bit of weight on the rear bumper, I can get that stop to "bottom out". Is that bottoming out the suspension? or is that the point at which the rear shock really starts to activate and work? I can really push down on it and start to get a bit of spring past it there, but not much. Even when I get and sit on the sled I don't really get any further travel down. That said, when I lift on the rear bumper, there's not a whole lot of travel before it starts lifting the track off the ground, so it's not like the weight of the sled is taking up all the suspension...

Any explanation of how this system is supposed to behave on this sled would be really appreciated.
 
With you sitting on it, you should be in the center of the transfer rod travel. So same distance top and bottom.
 
MURDER YAMAHA said:
With you sitting on it, you should be in the center of the transfer rod travel. So same distance top and bottom.
Click to expand...

There's only like an inch and a half travel on that. Basically that's all the suspension travel the rear track has? When I get just my kid (140ish lb) sitting on this the rods are at full travel. Are these springs just shot? This is a 2-up sled and if it's maxing out at 140, I wonder what weight they assume 2 riders to have. The machine only has 1100 miles on it and it was the old guy's ice fishing sled, so it's hasn't seen a ton of abuse.


I'll try clicking the suspension for a more firm ride (it's right in the middle on both shocks) and see how that changes it...
 
2 ups should be even firmer than a 1 up.
No way should a 140lb person bottom out the sled. it should have 11.5" of travel in the rear suspension.
If so, maybe a broken shock ?
Even a wore out shock shouldn't do this, as most of the "support" comes from the spring.
 
Ok... just to make sure we're talking about the right thing... With weight on the sled, this should be centered (this is with the kid on it)
ControlRod.jpg

When he (or I) get on the sled, this is the first part that moves. There's minimal compression of the spring or the shock itself before this bottoms out. The shock and spring have maybe an inch and a half or so difference between there, and absolutely no weight with the rear lifted off the ground. Once it's maxed on the rod, I can tell that the torsion spring is starting to compress... should it be compressing more before that point?


Edit to add... Ok, I just ran it up on the trailer and threw a strap around the back end. I cranked it down and I'm getting a ton of travel out of the shock and spring, but all after that rod maxes out against the stop. When I let the tension off the strap, it bounces right back up. I should have thought about doing that earlier.
 
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