Hi all,

new member here. I picked up a 1990 cbr1000f last week. I has 25k miles on it. Previous onwer didn't use it much in the last 5 years, so I've been working on all the general stuff to make it road ready. Somethings that is bothering me is the suspension. The rear end of the bike bounces up and down a lot while riding. It happends both at low and high speeds. This is noticeable like, for example, while pasing through a speed bump on the street. It will bounce pretty bad few times. Any recomendations on how to set up my suspension?

Thanks a lot.
Javier.

 

Adjust your spring until you have 0.75-1.0 inches of sag. - sag= the amount of rearend downward movement above the rear axel when you sit on the bike. Then start cranking in rebound damping. The std. setting is 0.5 turn out from full in. I'm about 250 lbs. and I have my damping 0.25 turns out.

 

Bassman,

so, just to be sure, the first thing you are talking about is the spring preload? Do you think that my current setting has too much or too little preload?

Thanks.

 

There is no way for me to tell if your preload is too much or too little. That's why you have to measure the sag. If you have more than 1" crank in more preload. If you have less than 0.75" backoff on the preload.

 

That much jounce sounds like a worn shock, even with minimum damping you should not get more than 1 rebound bounce (jounce).

 

+1 sounds like the shock is finished especially if you run the preload
right up and still find it see-saws at all.

Just replaced the rear shock on my 90 this winter for precisely the same
reason........... which became every apparent on a trip down south last
year.

 

If that is the case, then what are my options? A used one on ebay? is there any good aftermarket for this bike?

 

Not long replaced mine with a Hagon unit, the old one was completely FUBARED.

They cost £300+ but they slot straight in, I changed the front springs at the same time for good measure and it's transformed the handling.

Alternatively you could find a second hand unit on E-bay, but it may be as bad as the one you've got already.

Cue the gratuitous pics

 

That's mighty pretty Hawk...Only two photos??

 

There's one out on EBAY atm from a 1995 year I believe

Call me Capt Obvious but the later the year you can find the better.

I put a 94 into my 1990 Silver bike for 50 bucks as the bike budget
didn't have the price of a Hagon in it !

Having said that Hawks hagon is indeed very nice
I've also seen some interesting alternatives on Ebay
Germany & Italy too !