Fork Suspension Upgrade/Rebuild 2001 M900 S

[Howie]

Do keep in mind the more you raise the rear the quicker the steering.  A little at a time.

[diamonddog-2]

Thanks greenmonster. I'll do the wishbone adjustment out to 10 to 12mm once the bike comes back from the tuner and see how that feels. On the short ride out to drop the bike off, I had put a folded towel on the seat to both rise my butt and to pad it a little. Seemed better for the knees and posterior. I'll try a specific 1/2 thick dense foam next and take it out for a longer ride. Along with the 10-12 mm adjustment, 1/2 inch additional seat padding may be just fine for my knees and arse. Yes, a little adjustment at a time makes sense.

Thanks!   

[greenmonster]

Before wishbone ajustments:
How much of forks showing above triple?

[Moronic]

Diamonddog-2, from your post above it is not clear whether you are aware that the wishbone adjustment won't affect the seat-pegs-bars relationship. Except in so far as it tilts your entire posture a little more forward, which may move a (very) little of your weight from the seat to the handlebar when you are cruising along.

The point of extending that wishbone is just to affect the way the bike steers (and add some cornering clearance). Lifting the bike there steepens the effective steering head angle, which in turn reduces trail - the measurement that defines how the steering self-centres. Going higher reduces steering effort, and on the flip side reduces stability.

Yes it's a good idea, up to a point, and I have gone that way on mine (later frame, so I can't compare directly as others here can). Arguably, a Monster stock is too stable - set up that way by the factory so that less experienced riders feel comfortable.

As suggested, this is something you can experiment with before you do the suspension, and it is plausible that if you find a happier place with the steering then you are better positioned to evaluate your suspension.

On the other hand, I didn't see sharper steering among your original wishes for modification. So I would argue you could also leave the wishbone alone, and sort the other stuff first.

[diamonddog-2]

Thanks guys.  Okay, so the wishbone adjustment isn't going to change the distance between my seat and footpegs. It'll change the steering response to make it quicker, the further out it's adjusted.
Increase the seat padding to possibly alleviate my knee issue a bit and make my seat/ride more comfortable. Got it!

I picked up the bike last evening from having it tuned. Upper 40's - lower 50's F temp. outside......but I didn't care.  Tires and road too cold and too much traffic to get much of a feel for the engine except it SEEMED to feel stronger/quicker on a short burst when the freeway briefly opened up.  The dyno charts have the engine adding about 2.5 more H.P. and adding almost 2 ft/torque but it added almost 600 more RPM to the length of the power band.  Chart has it running max. 80.56hp [@8.11 rpm] vs. 77.99 hp,  max. torque is at 57.54 ft@ 6.18 rpm. The drop off went from 8500 rpm to 9100 ... IF I'm reading this right!!

What was confusing for me was the high idle I experienced. Tach was running pretty steady at 2000 to 2500 rpm at traffic lights.  I made sure the fast idle [ choke ]  was backed off. I'll try it again today. Weird. Maybe my heavily gloved hands were somehow an issue with the controls.

I'm trying to figure out if it's going to be possible to get the bike to the suspension tuners shop, about 35 miles away, before the snow flies here. ...... yay winter.  I'd like to get some more of this done before storage.