70-80 MPH and over fish tail feeling

Yamaha FJR Motorcycle Forum

Help Support Yamaha FJR Motorcycle Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Unless you weigh a lot having the rear suspension set to soft shouldn't have made your bike weave or wobble, unless maybe your front is setup poorly.
It's an 05 with the stock shock, it's only got 7k on it but I'll bet the shock is going out.
I've been reading crsp stuff like this on the forum for 6 years...stock shock wearing out in 5-10-15k miles. What a pant-load!

Granted, the stock shock ain't no Wilbers or Ohlins, but worn out in 7k miles? ONLY if it's a Gen II. :finger:
Howie, it can/does happen.. <_< I had a gen1 and the stock shock went south at 9K miles. :huh:
I guess I'll have to take your word for it, but unless yer haulin' potatoes for McDonalds (or beemerdons), I just can't imagine a shock wearing out in 7k miles.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Unless you weigh a lot having the rear suspension set to soft shouldn't have made your bike weave or wobble, unless maybe your front is setup poorly.
It's an 05 with the stock shock, it's only got 7k on it but I'll bet the shock is going out.
I've been reading crsp stuff like this on the forum for 6 years...stock shock wearing out in 5-10-15k miles. What a pant-load!

Granted, the stock shock ain't no Wilbers or Ohlins, but worn out in 7k miles? ONLY if it's a Gen II. :finger:
Howie, it can/does happen.. <_< I had a gen1 and the stock shock went south at 9K miles. :huh:
I guess I'll have to take your word for it, but unless yer haulin' potatoes for McDonalds (or beemerdons), I just can't imagine a shock wearing out in 7k miles.
RadioHowie: You dared to question our own Petey? Gott im Himmel! I sure hope that BikerGeek99 has his video camera rolling when Petey unleashes a flying roundhouse kick to your ugly mug!

Chuck Norris will be studying the film for a month!

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Unless you weigh a lot having the rear suspension set to soft shouldn't have made your bike weave or wobble, unless maybe your front is setup poorly.
It's an 05 with the stock shock, it's only got 7k on it but I'll bet the shock is going out.
I've been reading crsp stuff like this on the forum for 6 years...stock shock wearing out in 5-10-15k miles. What a pant-load!

Granted, the stock shock ain't no Wilbers or Ohlins, but worn out in 7k miles? ONLY if it's a Gen II. :finger:
Howie, it can/does happen.. <_< I had a gen1 and the stock shock went south at 9K miles. :huh:
I guess I'll have to take your word for it, but unless yer haulin' potatoes for McDonalds (or beemerdons), I just can't imagine a shock wearing out in 7k miles.
I got 30,000 something miles out of my stock shock...Actually, I think it was around 37k before I had it replaced. I'm not the lightest guy around, I ride two up, and I ride fast sometimes, but maybe I just don't have the expert feel of some of these other master motorcycle riders that know these things...

 
Maybe if someone can quantify "Worn Out Shock Syndrome" for me by describing what the effects are, I'd know if my 04 OEM shock is dunfer at 64k miles.

Anyone up for the challenge??? :)

 
I agree, a shock don't wear out in 7K, hell I don't think it'll wear out in 20K.( unless you weigh 300#+) In my case at ~9K, it made a loud scrapping noise and wouldn't rebound fast enough no matter what the setting. Mama Yami replaced it under warranty.

 
Maybe if someone can quantify "Worn Out Shock Syndrome" for me by describing what the effects are, I'd know if my 04 OEM shock is dunfer at 64k miles.

Anyone up for the challenge??? :)
Steve-O, I am so very glad that you were the first Doofus to post this! My Miss Lucy Liu is still running her original OEM shock at the same mileage that you now have.

SkooterG did a full maintenance on my 2003 before I left for Canada last June and he said the shock is still working just fine. Last month we swapped bikes so I could try out his car tire and Greg said my stock shock is still operating excellent. Maybe the reason is because we are not a pair of fat fuckers like HotRodZilla and Petey!!!

 
Last edited by a moderator:
And to the OP, yeah, 36 is way too low for the front tire. 40 should work fine as long as you haven't already cupped the front due to the low pressure.

Also, you didn't mention, what windshield are you running?
He says he only weighs 145, (double amputee? Asian? Have I insulted everyone by now?), so I'm not sure he needs to run at the upper end of the recommended pressure ranges, does he?
Yeah, I would. The majority of the weight that we are hauling around on these fat girls is the bike's Difference between this little guy (145? really?) and a normal 200 lb Amurican is only 55 lbs. Or about a 6 percent total difference in GVW. IOW not all that much.

Maybe if someone can quantify "Worn Out Shock Syndrome" for me by describing what the effects are, I'd know if my 04 OEM shock is dunfer at 64k miles.

Anyone up for the challenge??? :)

:jerry:

If I had to make a stab at that I would say, since the shock's only job is to provide damping of the rear suspension, the symptom of a "worn out shock" would be that you could no longer dial in an appropriate amount of damping for the spring at any clicker settings. This is compounded by the fact that we only have an adjustment for rebound damping on the stock shocks, so when the compressions damping feels weak it's replacement time. I know what that means on the front end, but what the bike feels like with weak compression damping on the rear end I will leave to the more experienced suspension kings.

Of course you could also have a mechanical failure, like petey mentions, where the mechanism no longer operates smoothly, but I think most people are replacing their stock shock for inadequate damping or ability to adjust it better.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
And to the OP, yeah, 36 is way too low for the front tire. 40 should work fine as long as you haven't already cupped the front due to the low pressure.

Also, you didn't mention, what windshield are you running?
He says he only weighs 145, (double amputee? Asian? Have I insulted everyone by now?), so I'm not sure he needs to run at the upper end of the recommended pressure ranges, does he?
Yeah, I would. The majority of the weight that we are hauling around on these fat girls is the bike's Difference between this little guy (145? really?) and a normal 200 lb Amurican is only 55 lbs. Or about a 6 percent total difference in GVW. IOW not all that much.

Maybe if someone can quantify "Worn Out Shock Syndrome" for me by describing what the effects are, I'd know if my 04 OEM shock is dunfer at 64k miles.

Anyone up for the challenge??? :)

:jerry:

If I had to make a stab at that I would say, since the shock's only job is to provide damping of the rear suspension, the symptom of a "worn out shock" would be that you could no longer dial in an appropriate amount of damping for the spring at any clicker settings. This is compounded by the fact that we only have an adjustment for rebound damping on the stock shocks, so when the compressions damping feels weak it's replacement time. I know what that means on the front end, but what the bike feels like with weak compression damping on the rear end I will leave to the more experienced suspension kings.

Of course you could also have a mechanical failure, like petey mentions, where the mechanism no longer operates smoothly, but I think most people are replacing their stock shock for inadequate damping or ability to adjust it better.
I'm far from an experienced suspension king, but I think, pogo stick feeling comes to mind... :unsure:

 
I'm far from an experienced suspension king, but I think, pogo stick feeling comes to mind... :unsure:

I would think that the pogo stick feeling would be from inadequate rebound damping. And you may be right that this why folks replace their shocks, for that totally undamped feeling. But I wonder what the bike would feel like if you cranked up the rebound adequately but the compression damping was fubar (cause you can't adjust it) just on the rear end.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I also think inadequate compression damping wouldn't take to well to sharp bumps and pot holes.... possibly bottom out.

 
Yeah, I think that might be the answer. Bottom out and since the rebound is theoretically working (normally) it might pack up somewhat over a series of bumps (squatting)

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Top