1- Check out this site, http://www.sportrider.com/tech/suspension/ its gives alot of info about suspension basics and some troubleshooting info
2- The rear shock is the thing under the red spring, to set your preload, use the spanner wrench in your factory tool kit and adjust from 1 to 7, the rebound asjustment screw is on the bottom of the shock, the comp. screw is on the resevoir. Always adjust these little by little and write down or remember where you started out. The front forks have thier own adjustments the preload and rebound are on top and the compression is on the bottom rear side of the fork.
3- Wait til you get you manual, and read through the instructions and you can decide if you want to try it. It might be easier to by a set of low mile forks from ebay and swap yours out.
4- The stabalizer is easy to take off. If your worried about it, i'd invest in some security bolts and secure it with those.
Good luck with the bike