Air Shocks

Does anyone out there have air shocks on their Swing? If so...what kind

The only air shocks for the Silverwing I've ever heard of are Fournales. Made in France IIRC. Extremely pricey.

Tim

Why? Just more junk to break/fail/expense. Fancy shocks will not overcome basic design of bike.

Thanks for informed input

I was curious as to an answer for your question also, Pastor Ron.
But seeing as to how you got a question as a reply & answered before you actually replied,
I figured I'd get a reply before I could type out my question too, so I decided to just wait.
Must be a long informative answer as it hasn't posted yet

I believe the only infomative answer was the shocks from France.

Aren't the uprated coil springs and bump stop that came standard with your GT3 trike kit doing their job?

yes their doing great....but...I was looking possibly for the front forks

Oh...now you tell us. Shesh.

There are no "air shock" upgrades for the front suspension. Best you can do is to upgrade to Hyper Pro springs and heavier fork oil.

Tim

There is another possibility, and that would be to add "air assist" to the forks.

This would be only about a 4 psi system, give or take about 1-2 psi, since you only want to take up the excess sag, not change the dynamics or geometry of the front end.

I've been thinking of trying this, since, #1 Hyperpro is $190 and #2 the SW fork springs are already progressively wound.
Air is inherently progressive too, so air over progressive coil is a good match.

Since I run at or above the max load for the SW, I need a bit more damping and spring.
My plan is to change the fork seals and replace the oil with the 20w, and to modify the fork caps to add air fittings and a large crush gasket. They will be plumbed together to a fill valve and low pressure gauge.
And as long as you don't put more than about 5psi you probably won't over-stress the seals.

This will cost a whole lot less than Hypers, and will allow fine adjustment of the "air preload".

The money I save will pay for new rear shocks, which have gotten a bit bouncey.......

Ooo-whee. I'll be looking forward to your posts on this. Photos too, I hope.

Tim

....If /when I ever get around to it   maybe soon, but I AM a bit on the lazy side...

In theory it should work fine, my GS750 had air over spring and it worked well. Just the matter of the fork caps. I might try to find some on FleaBay and have the mod kit ready to go when I get the initiative to pull the forks.

I tried air in front forks---Japan, XL250--fork caps with valve, small pump with gauge....while cheap conversion=really did not work that well.

Overloading SilverWing==heavy fork oil, different springs might be best solution.

Sidewinder Pilot wrote:

....If /when I ever get around to it   maybe soon, but I AM a bit on the lazy side...

In theory it should work fine, my GS750 had air over spring and it worked well. Just the matter of the fork caps. I might try to find some on FleaBay and have the mod kit ready to go when I get the initiative to pull the forks.

I hear you on the "If/when", but... if Shrader valves were added to the fork caps, and given the inaccessibility of the fork caps, how would you then plumb something to a remote location for a low pressure gauge and (third?) Shrader valve? Some kind of a banjo fitting and small dia copper tubing...plastic tubing?

Tim

Its been done before, when I had my vmax's there is a mod to replace the linked pipe between both fork legs with separate Shrader valves fitted in the fork caps and pumped up separately to the req'd pressure, I don't think that it would be too big a job to do this on the S/w forks and either couple them together or have separate feeds to each fork leg. Also bare in mind that you only want a small amount of air pressure in the fork legs, if you put too much air in and it blows by the fork seal they would need replacing or they will be forever leaking oil. This is also something that I have thought about doing but never got around to it. Pud.

Excently info......Thanks

This was previously posted.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Honda-Silver-Wing-Scooter-Billet-Aluminum-Preload-Fork-Cap-Adjusters-Adjustors-/271069380978?hash=item3f1cfe8172m3BAYsT02Mh-UXYQwPQu1yg&vxp=mtr

This is an easier way to apply pre-load to your front forks and is adjustable.

When that eBay link was posted earlier I wrote to the supplier to inquire wether those caps would fit our FSC/FJS Silverwing suspension. I supplied them with some specifics regarding our fork tubes, etc. Turns out that those caps will fit only the old Silverwing 500 / 650 motorcycles, not our scooter fork tubes.

Dunno why they are still promoting their product as scooter friendly.

Tim

Honda front springs have long spacers in the forks. Hyper Pro springs are longer and do not require the spacers fitting. Spring wire and progression is different also.

Hyper Pro springs and using their supplied oil did the trick for my bulk.

Flyingpanman, Thank you for your info......unless something new comes along, I will change my front shocks this winter to Hyper Pro

Here's my 2c on this...Hyper Pro shocks & their magic oil really helped with making my Wing safer to ride and improved overall feel of the scooter during highway speeds. With old stock shocks it was unbearable riding the scoot and almost dangerous at the certain speeds and when cornering. I would say if you have $ go for it.