Swapping a shock- the dodgy way

well heres a good tip for ne of u needing emergency shock replacement, or without the right tools... safe as houses...

take off fairing if u want- we did a 03 zx636 with the fairing on..

1.crack top and bottom mount nut/bolt
2.undo nuts and put them sumwhere safe!!
3.get a mate to lift the bike up on the sidesatnd holding the subframe (as if u were going to pivot the bike to move it
4.take iout the top shock mount bolt..this should free the shock
5.take out the bottom mount bolt.
6.carefully wriggle the shock loose
7.get ur mate to lift the back as high as he can till u can slide the shock out..


then reverse that and ur shock is changed... it wasnt hard, nor did it take long once we sussed it out... reckon it took 30min to swap both shocks...


i now am the proud owner of a 03 zx6r barra shock...

and sum poor sap who buys a 03 zx6r will have a pretty red z1 shock with 800km on it!!

Bush Mechanics to the rescue! :-p

Good luck trying to dial it in......!

I like my centre stand.

goddam neka, got any mates sellin 6rs?? i'd post mine down for a straight swap

I like my centre stand.

wouldnt of helped much..we had the bike on a race stand but it made id harder....



sorry wattie...cant help mate...

and yea..good luck dialling it in..ill go see Hoey !!

I like my centre stand.

wouldnt of helped much..we had the bike on a race stand but it made id harder....

Oh, the centrestand makes my shock easy to remove. Left side cover and three bolts is all it takes. May even be possible to do without removing the tie rod bolt, but I took everything apart for cleaning and greasing.

I like my centre stand.

wouldnt of helped much..we had the bike on a race stand but it made id harder....

Oh, the centrestand makes my shock easy to remove. Left side cover and three bolts is all it takes. May even be possible to do without removing the tie rod bolt, but I took everything apart for cleaning and greasing.

ohhh ok... well the rear stand made it hard cos he had to lift the weight of the ass end of the bike off the ground.... with nothing really easy to hold on the zed...

by leaning it on its side he could lift without taking as much weight..he literally held it for abt 5-10 min while i wriggled the old one free, and replaced it...

Make sure you regrease the parts with a grease gun!

Did the same with the 7. but jacked it up from the zorst to get the front wheel out to polish it. Dodgy but it worked. You could pull the whole front end off the thing the same way.

Axel stands under the foot pegs works a treat. I didn't remove my shock entirely, just removed the top end and added washers to raise the ride height a bit. Guess I could have had the bottom end out while I was at it.

Did the same with the 7. but jacked it up from the zorst to get the front wheel out to polish it. Dodgy but it worked. You could pull the whole front end off the thing the same way.

haha ALL of my work on the cbr was done by trolley jacking the headers just near the sump....

well heres a good tip for ne of u needing emergency shock replacement, or without the right tools... safe as houses...

take off fairing if u want- we did a 03 zx636 with the fairing on..

1.crack top and bottom mount nut/bolt
2.undo nuts and put them sumwhere safe!!
3.get a mate to lift the bike up on the sidesatnd holding the subframe (as if u were going to pivot the bike to move it
4.take iout the top shock mount bolt..this should free the shock
5.take out the bottom mount bolt.
6.carefully wriggle the shock loose
7.get ur mate to lift the back as high as he can till u can slide the shock out..


then reverse that and ur shock is changed...

Nothing really dodgy about that. That's pretty much *the* way to change rear shocks if you have a mate handy.

That said, though, I prefer my way of using a car scissor jack under the frame rear cross member or, if the bike doesn't have a full system fitted, under the link pipe. That's for the following reason:

If you're swapping shocks, chances are you're putting something in that's longer than what you're taking out, and the most difficult part of putting a shock back in is getting the boltholes on the bottom on the shock to line up with the bearing in the linkage; have to get the swingarm at just the right angle to do it. If you're using a scissor jack, you just let the back tyre rest on the ground and wind the jack leadscrew until the holes in the shock line up with the hole in the linkage. I dare say that method is even more fuss-free than having a mate hold the bike up on the front wheel and sidestand. It's definitely more secure; a jack isn't going to get tired or realise halfway through he got hold of the wrong bit of bike...

To make it even easier, undo the bolt attaching the dogbones to the linkage and swing them both out of the way. That lets the shock come in and out without having to make the gap between the back wheel and the undertray too big.

I removed a shock yesterday by lifting the back of the bike with one arm and sitting the subframe onto a ladder ..... not a word of a lie.

I did mine with a tie down around a roof beam to the pillion handle.
Matter of fact its still sitting like the now as the shock has to be sent away...

But dave, your a f*ing big unit!!!!