Fork spring placement?

[racinj]

I am putting new fork seals in and when I pulled them out the tapered part of the spring was down and the book says to put the tapered end up. Not sure if the last person that had them out put them in wrong or if someone thought it worked better the other way. Let me know if you have any thoughts. Thanks

 

[bkra13]

I had the same thing happen, turns out the manual changed the direction of the taper at some point (taper up pre 05, down 05/06?). Wouldn't worry about it too much.

 

[Bigmak96]

Wouldn't worry about it too much.

+1 The spring doesn't know which way is up, it just gets compressed either way.

 

[dduelin]

The truly obsessed will tell you to insert them with the tighter coils down so as to not increase unsprung weight when the tighter coils compress. When they become coil bound they are no longer part of the motorcycle's sprung weight and become part of the unsprung weight.

 

[acedantinne]

04 tight end down. per Honda service manual.

 

[racinj]

That is kind of what I thought. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[bkra13]

The truly obsessed will tell you to insert them with the tighter coils down so as to not increase unsprung weight when the tighter coils compress. When they become coil bound they are no longer part of the motorcycle's sprung weight and become part of the unsprung weight.

The truly obsessed will throw out the variable rate spring and go with a straight-rate so they'll know what it'll do in all situations and not have to worry about taper up or down..

 

[BuddingGeezer]

Progressive says tight wound up in some literature, makes no difference in other literature, Honda service manual tight side down to decrease fork spring rattle. really doesn't matter. The spring is going to compress at the same rate regardless of orientation.