Tiger without rear suspension

[Colonel Nikolai]

Where did he tell you what to do to set the "sag"? I would love to have 27 degrees fahenheit right now. We're sitting at 17 right now in MN :?

Also, HappyMan, if you want to meet up, just say where and when. Of course I have no rear-end at the moment, sagging or otherwise :P, but after I get the new suspension in, I'm game!

[HappyMan]

Yes, definitely we should get together sometime.  We should probably shoot for January whether with the bike or not.  I only know of three of us here on the site from Sunny Minnesota!!  Come January let's try to catch up whether you contacting me or vise versa.  8)

[aeronca]

i couldnt find the thread on setting sag, but i remember it going something like this. tighten the big nut on the spring untill you get about 3" of drop when you sit on the bike. in other word's, your back end of the bike should squat down about three inches when you sit on it. that should be the "sag". your best bet is to talk to sasquatch and he can explain it  much better than me. but i hope this helped a little :)

[Sasquatch]

Hi guys.  Here is a link to my blog on setting the sag.

http://sasquatchrider.blogspot.com/

I leave the nuts loose to force the owner to set the sag.  I need to get some documentation together to ship back with the shocks on how to do this.  I will get this done soon for future customers.

[aeronca]

Hi guys.  Here is a link to my blog on setting the sag.

http://sasquatchrider.blogspot.com/

I leave the nuts loose to force the owner to set the sag.  I need to get some documentation together to ship back with the shocks on how to do this.  I will get this done soon for future customers.

hey sasquatch, since your a mod, could we post the link to your site for setting sag in the wisdom section??? it's pretty helpful. :)

[Colonel Nikolai]

Sasquatch, thanks for the info! I'm shoveling out of 10" of snow still (my shoveling efforts last night were eradicated by morning) and it's 5 degrees right now :shock:. With my unheated garage, tigger's going to have to wait until the weekend to put it all back together.

Then I won't try and ride for a while so I might not have much to say about compression and rebound settings and the final report on how the bike feels with the new kit in it. But when I do get around to it, I will report on it! I'm a little beside myself!

[Colonel Nikolai]

Hello everyone. I successfully installed the suspension from Sasquatch! A couple of noteworthy things: 1) I had to disconnect the dogbones from the lower shock mount on the linkage to get the clearance to put the shock in. This is really puzzling since I did not have to do this to remove the old shock. I don't understand this, maybe I'm just stupid. Once the dogbones were off, however, the shock installed in 2-3 minutes. Since I struggled with it for almost an hour before deciding I needed to disconnect the dogbones, I was nearly frozen and just put the bike on its sidestand. I did not even tighten the bolts, notwithstanding put all the parts back on it or even start it up.

In the process of struggling to put the shock back, I scraped a tiny bit of the coating off the new spring in a couple of places. This bums me out: I don't want the new spring to rust! I will probably paint some rubber dipit over the scrapes this spring prior to finally reassembly, setting the sag and playing with the dampening.

I'll post pictures when I can.

[HappyMan]

It's always so tough to work on the bike in the cold. I'm fortunate to have a heated garage and every time I use it I remind myself of how lucky I am.   Sorry you had a rough time of it.  I'd do the same with the spring and get some plastic dip to put on it.  Our salt here in the winter is a killer on our bikes...

[Colonel Nikolai]

Heated garage.

I really envy you. I have a single car garage, detached. I wish for a two-car all the time, I just can't bring myself to fork over the ~10k to make it happen, or find the time to do it myself for half that.

[HappyMan]

I can make my garage available to you if it helps.  Just give me a ring and I'd be happy to help out as well.  Could find a beer or two as well.....

[Colonel Nikolai]

Dude!  8) That's very kind of you. I may take you up on that at some point in the future. Do you own a steamer or a Girly or what? If you owned a Steamer you could probably talk me through adjusting my valves this spring if you've ever done it before. I'm developing the courage to try it on my own, someone who's been there would put me over the top! I'll buy you lunch or beers or whatnot.

[HappyMan]

I've got an 06 Girly so no experience in the valve work on the Steamer but SERadke is from Mnpls as well and he's quite handy with a wrench.  I haven't seen him around lately.  Don't be a stranger!

[Mustang]

I've got an 06 Girly so no experience in the valve work on the Steamer

They are exactly the same as far as the valve check and adjustment is concerned .

This explains it pretty well ...............................

http://tigertriple.com/forum/index.php/msg,34259

and if you have a lot of valves to shim it is easier to pull the cams and get them out of the way.

I've also found that the silicone on the rubber valve cover gasket is not needed , Triumph recommends it . I don't use it ........... YMMV

[Colonel Nikolai]

Mustang, I've pored over that link several times already! You are a godsend: it's one thing to read it in my Haynes manual, it's another to see it explained by someone who has been there. I even bought a used valve shim tool from ebay already (new finger design). It's sitting in a tin box in my toolbox taunting me each time I open.

I've already mentioned I've tackled projects in my Haynes manual that are "three wrenches" (on a scale of one to five in difficulty) and since valve check and adjustment is also "three wrenches", I figure if I'm a serious Tiger owner, it's time to "man up" and learn how to love these babies right.

[Colonel Nikolai]

Ok, I got the Tiger put all back together. Here are a couple of pix that show the installed rear shock by Sasquatch.

The first shot is a longer shot with a little red arrow pointing to where you can see the purple spring from the new suspension. The first one is a close up: I have not tried to adjust anything yet, as you can see.

One thing I did notice: it takes about 2-3 times the amount of downward force when I throw my body down against the seat to get the rear to drop. This downward forcing I have decided to develop a deeply technical term: "assslamming".  

More progress on this thread when the warm weather comes. Sorry I couldn't take this project any further yet!