Post by Nacho on Feb 11, 2005 10:16:21 GMT 1
Dear all friends.
Due to weak materials and wrong design of the rear shock absorber of the Royal Star Venture, many failures of this item have caused hundreds of replacements under warranty in USA and some less in Europe (much shorter warranty of two years instead of five).
Let's see if I can explain with my poor English the change of both, the rear shock and the shock linkage. Please excuse me if I do grammar mistakes or wrong phrase construction and vocabulary.
In a step by step procedure, here we show the starting point of our suspension problems. This is the original shock absorber mounted by Yamaha from 1.999 to 2.004, the one Yamaha has replaced so many times with oil leak.
It seems that this shock has two problems that cause the premature failure. First one is the material chosen for the shaft inside, being too weak and easily scratched. The second problem is the design of the rubber boot around the shock. That boot is there to protect the shock and the shaft from dirtiness, water, dust and debris from the road. The boot has in the bottom part some little holes to allow the correct movement of compression an expansion of the boot. Well, it seems that those holes, apart from letting the boot breath, also allow those elements to get inside and attack the shaft, causing the loose of part or all oil of the shock.
After 5 years of claims, and with the birth of the Royal Star Tour Deluxe, they finally decide to modify the shock for both the RSV and the RSTD. We wish that they would have changed the whole shock for a better one, but what they have done is to make only a new design for the boot. Now the boot does not have those breathing holes and therefore it is supposed to keep the debris away from the shaft.
But the boot still needs to breath, so they made a vent hose that goes up about 40 cm. to avoid being too close to the road. This vent has also a filter at the end so it even stops more of that tiny debris.
With this new shock and boot, it seems that the amount of claims for changing shocks in USA has dropped drastically. But we still have listened about more failures of the new shock. So the problem could not be 100% solved yet.
Here is a drawing of the new shock with the vent hose:
And here is a real picture for more detail:
Now, for those who want to go further in the improvement of the rear suspension of the RSV, here is another modification that we suggest to do.
By the rear shock absorber of these great bikes, there is a linkage system made by two pieces of metal that we call T-bones (because of the shape of them).
Here are some pictures of those T-bones both, mounted on the bike and also out of it:
Now, if you make new linkages and build them a little bit shorter than the stock ones, we get a Venture between 1 and 3 cm taller at the rear part of it. This will allow you to save exhausts, saddles bags and floorboards from dragging in cornering and fast curves and getting scratched. Also, a rear raised Venture will be much easier to handle and drive than stock ones.
Some even say that with this modification, the shock receives less pressure and weight from the own bike and therefore it works better and longer in time (less failure).
I myself asked my Yamaha dealer in Spain about this and they said that not everything about this is true. According to them, it is true that the modification raises the bike a little bit. They said this is a very common and typical thing to do in racing bikes with the only purpose of avoiding drags on the roads, but specially inside racing circuits.
Fernando Molinero, the dealer owner, said that this fix only modifies the inclination of the shock, making it work more or less vertical. This does not change the technical characteristics and properties of the shock and if it does, we can not notice it due to the huge weight of these bikes (400 kilograms).
So, it seems that the fix is good for raising the bike, for make it easier to handle and for avoiding drags in some parts, specially if we have a rude or fast driving. With this modification, we can fell the bike with no pressure at all in the shock as before with half of the pressure allowed by Yamaha. This means that we can "treat" the shock a little bit better and therefore making it good for longer time.
Just in case anybody is interested in doing this fix, here is the info needed to making it possible.
First thing is to do is to make the new linkage. I made this pattern in a Word document for both, metric and inches measurements. The drawing showed is smaller than the original, but if anybody needs the original, made with real measurements, go to venturers.proboards42.com and ask for it.
*******************************************
Once we have the new linkage, all we need is to mount them in the bike. Unfortunately, I was not able to take pictures of the new linkage, so the next pictures show them already mounted in the bike.
First two pictures belong to my good friend John Jr Madden. I took the pictures during the summer of 2004 in the International Venture Meeting of Switzerland. The other pictures are from my own bike and I took them in February 2005 in Valladolid, Spain.
---------------------------------------
Now, only one week after this modification, with a new shock and new linkage, I feel my Venture as if she was much lighter. Cornering is much easier now and I don't drag any more in curves and roundabouts that I used to. And that's riding with no pressure at all in the shock. In the next days, I will increase pressures of the shock and make different tests to see how the bike behaves now.
I hope that this info is useful for anybody. We share here and we feel that it is a good thing to do in our bikes. But we are not responsible for any damage done to your bikes or your selfs because of doing this. This is what we have done and we are happy with it, but anything you may do about it will be at your own risk.
Finally, I want to thank the help given by my Yamaha dealer "Motos Molinero" in Palencia, Spain. Also, to John and Roland in Germany and finally to the author of this document in USA who I don't have the luck to know and who allowed us to do the whole job. In the document you will find a step by step procedure for making the new links.
usuarios.lycos.es/nachoaltesa/Fotos/ShockLinkage.pdf
Good luck with it. Please feel free to come to our European forum and ask as many questions as you want.
Best regards from Spain,
--------------------------------------------------
Nacho Altés.
ignacio-altes@araleditores.com
Venture Club Spain.
www.venture-spain.com
Europe Venturers.
www.venturers.de/
venturers.proboards42.com
--------------------------------------------------
Due to weak materials and wrong design of the rear shock absorber of the Royal Star Venture, many failures of this item have caused hundreds of replacements under warranty in USA and some less in Europe (much shorter warranty of two years instead of five).
Let's see if I can explain with my poor English the change of both, the rear shock and the shock linkage. Please excuse me if I do grammar mistakes or wrong phrase construction and vocabulary.
In a step by step procedure, here we show the starting point of our suspension problems. This is the original shock absorber mounted by Yamaha from 1.999 to 2.004, the one Yamaha has replaced so many times with oil leak.
It seems that this shock has two problems that cause the premature failure. First one is the material chosen for the shaft inside, being too weak and easily scratched. The second problem is the design of the rubber boot around the shock. That boot is there to protect the shock and the shaft from dirtiness, water, dust and debris from the road. The boot has in the bottom part some little holes to allow the correct movement of compression an expansion of the boot. Well, it seems that those holes, apart from letting the boot breath, also allow those elements to get inside and attack the shaft, causing the loose of part or all oil of the shock.
After 5 years of claims, and with the birth of the Royal Star Tour Deluxe, they finally decide to modify the shock for both the RSV and the RSTD. We wish that they would have changed the whole shock for a better one, but what they have done is to make only a new design for the boot. Now the boot does not have those breathing holes and therefore it is supposed to keep the debris away from the shaft.
But the boot still needs to breath, so they made a vent hose that goes up about 40 cm. to avoid being too close to the road. This vent has also a filter at the end so it even stops more of that tiny debris.
With this new shock and boot, it seems that the amount of claims for changing shocks in USA has dropped drastically. But we still have listened about more failures of the new shock. So the problem could not be 100% solved yet.
Here is a drawing of the new shock with the vent hose:
And here is a real picture for more detail:
Now, for those who want to go further in the improvement of the rear suspension of the RSV, here is another modification that we suggest to do.
By the rear shock absorber of these great bikes, there is a linkage system made by two pieces of metal that we call T-bones (because of the shape of them).
Here are some pictures of those T-bones both, mounted on the bike and also out of it:
Now, if you make new linkages and build them a little bit shorter than the stock ones, we get a Venture between 1 and 3 cm taller at the rear part of it. This will allow you to save exhausts, saddles bags and floorboards from dragging in cornering and fast curves and getting scratched. Also, a rear raised Venture will be much easier to handle and drive than stock ones.
Some even say that with this modification, the shock receives less pressure and weight from the own bike and therefore it works better and longer in time (less failure).
I myself asked my Yamaha dealer in Spain about this and they said that not everything about this is true. According to them, it is true that the modification raises the bike a little bit. They said this is a very common and typical thing to do in racing bikes with the only purpose of avoiding drags on the roads, but specially inside racing circuits.
Fernando Molinero, the dealer owner, said that this fix only modifies the inclination of the shock, making it work more or less vertical. This does not change the technical characteristics and properties of the shock and if it does, we can not notice it due to the huge weight of these bikes (400 kilograms).
So, it seems that the fix is good for raising the bike, for make it easier to handle and for avoiding drags in some parts, specially if we have a rude or fast driving. With this modification, we can fell the bike with no pressure at all in the shock as before with half of the pressure allowed by Yamaha. This means that we can "treat" the shock a little bit better and therefore making it good for longer time.
Just in case anybody is interested in doing this fix, here is the info needed to making it possible.
First thing is to do is to make the new linkage. I made this pattern in a Word document for both, metric and inches measurements. The drawing showed is smaller than the original, but if anybody needs the original, made with real measurements, go to venturers.proboards42.com and ask for it.
*******************************************
Once we have the new linkage, all we need is to mount them in the bike. Unfortunately, I was not able to take pictures of the new linkage, so the next pictures show them already mounted in the bike.
First two pictures belong to my good friend John Jr Madden. I took the pictures during the summer of 2004 in the International Venture Meeting of Switzerland. The other pictures are from my own bike and I took them in February 2005 in Valladolid, Spain.
---------------------------------------
Now, only one week after this modification, with a new shock and new linkage, I feel my Venture as if she was much lighter. Cornering is much easier now and I don't drag any more in curves and roundabouts that I used to. And that's riding with no pressure at all in the shock. In the next days, I will increase pressures of the shock and make different tests to see how the bike behaves now.
I hope that this info is useful for anybody. We share here and we feel that it is a good thing to do in our bikes. But we are not responsible for any damage done to your bikes or your selfs because of doing this. This is what we have done and we are happy with it, but anything you may do about it will be at your own risk.
Finally, I want to thank the help given by my Yamaha dealer "Motos Molinero" in Palencia, Spain. Also, to John and Roland in Germany and finally to the author of this document in USA who I don't have the luck to know and who allowed us to do the whole job. In the document you will find a step by step procedure for making the new links.
usuarios.lycos.es/nachoaltesa/Fotos/ShockLinkage.pdf
Good luck with it. Please feel free to come to our European forum and ask as many questions as you want.
Best regards from Spain,
--------------------------------------------------
Nacho Altés.
ignacio-altes@araleditores.com
Venture Club Spain.
www.venture-spain.com
Europe Venturers.
www.venturers.de/
venturers.proboards42.com
--------------------------------------------------
