First time doing suspension work: Fork springs for DRZ400S?

[skshow289]

I am 6-2, 250 lbs. I've noticed the front forks on my DRZ400S are bottoming out a little more often than I think they should be. I've never done suspension work before but want to take a stab at it. I do most of the maintenance on my vehicles and want learn more about motorcycle maintenance.

Where can I find fork springs for my DRZ400S? Any good guides to installing? What kind of tools will I need?

 

[E.Marquez]

If you are literally just re-springing the forks basic hand tools is all you need

now is the part why tell you if they haven’t been serviced in the last two years you need to do more than just respring them

At the very least cleaning flushing and putting new oil in

and honestly they really need to be re-valved for your weight and use both compression and dampening is going to be way off for your weight with new springs

It might be good enough by just putting new oil in the correct spring in there but this is something common I see were people would be better off spending once crying once rather than doing it a second time

The cartridge forks on the DRC are about as easy as you can get as far as complex suspensions go there’s a couple of tricks to be able to get the cartridge loose without a special tool and while I’m sure somebody will pipe up and say all you need is a hammer a crescent wrench and some plastic PVC pipe to replace the seals and bushings I’ll politely disagree with them having re-done the job for people more times than I can count when they leak shortly after being put together with barged tools

 

[E.Marquez]

If you are literally just re-springing the forks basic hand tools is all you need

now is the part why tell you if they haven’t been serviced in the last two years you need to do more than just respring them

At the very least cleaning flushing and putting new oil in

and honestly they really need to be re-valved for your weight and use both compression and dampening is going to be way off for your weight with new springs

It might be good enough by just putting new oil in the correct spring in there but this is something common I see were people would be better off spending once crying once rather than doing it a second time

The cartridge forks on the DRC are about as easy as you can get as far as complex suspensions go there’s a couple of tricks to be able to get the cartridge loose without a special tool and while I’m sure somebody will pipe up and say all you need is a hammer a crescent wrench and some plastic PVC pipe to replace the seals and bushings I’ll politely disagree with them having re-done the job for people more times than I can count when they leak shortly after being put together with barged tools

Oh and the same goes for your rear shock if it hasn’t been touched in the last two or three years it absolutely needs to be refreshed if it has any hours on it at all the oil is trashed and full of metal take a good look at the bottom out bumper they commonly have deteriorated after I half a dozen years and the only way to replace them is to take the shock apart you can somewhat do that at home with basic tools but you’ll need to have the correct equipment to put the nitrogen charge back in it

It used to be common for local shops to get 10 or $15 to charge a shock when brought in alone I honestly don’t know if there’s any shops near you that still do that if you wanna make the drive I’d be happy to re-charge it for 10 bucks just to cover nitrogen use

 

[Crew Chief]

I'm a little shorter than you, but right at your weight and the money I put into the suspension was the best money I've spent. It was a big difference on my bike. I'm not an accomplished off road rider, but the changes gave me a lot more confidence. I used Race Tech's recommendation on spring for an intermediate rider of my my weight and a shim formula that I found at Thumper Talk for the valving. I did both the front and the back. The valving makes it a bit more complicated, but there are videos out there that do a fair job of covering it.