When Mark sold his Bandit 400 about fifteen million years ago, he gave me a Gixxer shock that he’d been thinking of putting on his bike. It’d been sitting in my garage, collecting dust, until I finally put it on the bike this afternoon.
It was super-easy to replace the shock, once I figured out that I needed to remove the gas tank and airbox to get to the shock’s upper mounting bolt. That little tip isn’t in the service manual, see, but I love you guys so I’m sharing it.
One of the advantages of pulling half the bike apart is that I get to clean everything. 😀
The stock shock (after removing the lower mounting bolt and lowering the swingarm)
After a good cleaning and installing the Gixxer shock
The final result is pretty good. I need to adjust the suspension, obviously — it’s actually a bit too stiff now — but the ride is smooth. I took it on a nice longish test ride, and the bike was fun to ride for the first time in quite a while. Very encouraging! It may be a worthy bike for the foothills yet…
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