Handling; cause, effect, symptoms

[dduelin]

Pan Weave - I doubt it - that was all cleared up after the court case. Modifications were made to the swing arm pivots bolts and the tightening procedure.

Nobody told the ST1300.

The ST1300 with a stock shock is so under sprung in the rear that heavy riders and all two up couples are riding on the bump stop over anything but glass smooth pavement. Advice to not crank up the preload is bollocks. With the soft spring all the preload available doesn't help the heavy rider get anywhere near decent sag. Bouncing off the bump stop at motorway speeds is very destabilizing. Fortunately the OP is only 150 lbs and doesn't carry any cargo so he has a shot at getting rear rider sag in the ball park of 45-50 mm and getting the shock to work in the middle of it's travel.

At the best a ST1300 exhibits light, quick steering due to the short wheelbase and quite steep rake angle. Honda designed the frame geometry to combine sport bike handling with touring capability. A rider coming from experience of more settled or stable bikes might be alarmed or frightened how an ST1300 feels at speed when it's just showing off its "happy feet."

 

[Ndfrc]

okay, first off, thank you all for the responses!
John, what a plethora of insider info, I loved it!
Will report back soon..
If this weave is harmless, well maybe that’s not the right word.. if all mitigation steps are taken into consideration, anything found that is not spec- corrected and we believe the bike is healthy, If then any weave experienced.. is the happy dance, well I could easily.. ummm.. Enjoy that bit.

Let me go mess with the girl and get some findings.

And when I said I didn’t want a bike that couldn’t keep up.. blah, blah, I didn’t mean I didn’t want my ST, quite the contrary, I love this bike, it has a home and I intend to make it a fast, capable hwy burner!

If anything, I need to get a nice 08 or better from initial reads about 07- and ECU remediation challenges.. whatever that means, but that another subject.

 

[dduelin]

The loss of years of discussion in past threads really is a loss for ST-O.

 

[Ndfrc]

The 'standard' rear pre-load adjustment is 7 click in ie 7 half turns of the knob on the left hand side.

Do it on the centre stand. But wind it out fully first (count the half turns so that you know where it was).
Then start winding it in - count the half turns - until you feel the resistance. Then count 7 half turns.
How many is that. How many was it before ?

The damper is at the bottom of the rear shock - a screwdriver slot which is accessed through a hole in the large right hand footpeg bracket.
Turn it clockwise for fully hard. Turn it anticlockwise for fully soft. Turn it fully clockwise (hard), then turn it back anticlockwise about 1 full turn. There are (apparently) tow punch marks - one ont he screw, one on the outside of the screw - which should align. Couldn't say about that - I've never noticed them ! That is a starting point. Adding more preload will make the front feel more twitchy. Lowering it will reduce it - but there is a set value based on where the bike sits when you are sitting on it. My suggestion will take you slightly below that - but if you go over a bump and the suspension bottoms out

The adjuster maint I did was as advertised, just the adj, not the shock. I have already messed with turning in and out already after the shakedown, so I don’t if I messed up any baselines to start from but I did manage this..
Bike on kickstand, backed off til turns free, start turning in til friction which was 1/4 turn, then turned in 7 clicks to be at standard. Put it on the center stand, it took 7.5 turns back out to free, then it took 7.5 turns in before friction, to then turn it in 7 more. So to me.. it turns in twice as much before friction, when on the stand, which probably means I didn’t do it right or baseline are off.. plus the book reads to me.. to turn it out, not in to set, and from lowest position? What’s up with that?

See that? I am confused.. I need to understand this.

I did the damper also before the shakedown.. I set it at standard within the range.



So today I should be able to test something’s..
Set to 42/42, set adj @ loose, no friction. Testride.
Set adj at max. Testride.
Set adj to Standard. Testride.

That should give me a feel on what that adjustment does. Can’t say much further until I feel results.

I think I want to pull both wheels, the stick on balance weighting looks botched at best, rebalance, get new T32s, inspect bearings, leave alone if fine. Then I can make sure the wheels get proper install. I’d like to just change the front tire as it looks like the just the rear was changed last time.
Also noted there seemed to be preferences for front vs rear tire choices, I need to settle on those choices, stay the same, or get different f vs r?

To be continued…

 

[dduelin]

The adjuster maint I did was as advertised, just the adj, not the shock. I have already messed with turning in and out already after the shakedown, so I don’t if I messed up any baselines to start from but I did manage this..
Bike on kickstand, backed off til turns free, start turning in til friction which was 1/4 turn, then turned in 7 clicks to be at standard. Put it on the center stand, it took 7.5 turns back out to free, then it took 7.5 turns in before friction, to then turn it in 7 more. So to me.. it turns in twice as much before friction, when on the stand, which probably means I didn’t do it right or baseline are off.. plus the book reads to me.. to turn it out, not in to set, and from lowest position? What’s up with that?

See that? I am confused.. I need to understand this.

I did the damper also before the shakedown.. I set it at standard within the range.



So today I should be able to test something’s..
Set to 42/42, set adj @ loose, no friction. Testride.
Set adj at max. Testride.
Set adj to Standard. Testride.

That should give me a feel on what that adjustment does. Can’t say much further until I feel results.

I think I want to pull both wheels, the stick on balance weighting looks botched at best, rebalance, get new T32s, inspect bearings, leave alone if fine. Then I can make sure the wheels get proper install. I’d like to just change the front tire as it looks like the just the rear was changed last time.
Also noted there seemed to be preferences for front vs rear tire choices, I need to settle on those choices, stay the same, or get different f vs r?

To be continued…

Measure laden and unladen sag first before the trial and error method. We don't count preload resistance on the center stand - there's no weight on the tire, no compression from weight of bike and weight of rider on the shock spring. We want the bike supporting it's own weight on its wheels. We want sag to be 30-33% of the available range of suspension travel. The ST1300 has 150 mm or rear suspension travel so the range to shoot for is 45-50 mm.

The preload adjuster - turn it counterclockwise fully until it has no more CCW left. Then turn it until resistance then count your desired preload adjustment clockwise. If It turns two clicks before resistance then you must turn it 9 clicks to achieve the Honda standard of 7 clicks in or clockwise. (the first 2 clicks isn't doing anything) CCW fully is least preload, CW 36 clicks is max preload adjustment. Honda says 7 clicks but for me with the stock spring I used 14 -18 clicks to achieve the rider sag that was best for me and best for high speed stability. It's been a long time but I think that was 45 mm. (165 lbs dressed in riding gear, no cargo in saddle bags, empty top case, full tank of gas.) With rider sag set to target then measure static sag with no rider. That is just the weight of the bike on its wheels, no rider no cargo. If the spring is good for your weight the static sag will be 5 - 10 mm. 0 - 5 mm unladen sag means the spring is too soft and requires excess preload to achieve laden sag. If the spring rate is wrong for the rider then all the trial and error fooling around with clicks accomplishes little but "the best compromise."

 

[Ndfrc]

Thanks DD!
More sound advice!

After looking at the bike, contemplating next best path.. it occurs to me that I am getting ahead of myself.. Aah-gain! short circuiting the shakedown process!.. what a shakedown tells you is either yes everything’s in spec or no it’s not.. and I even stated it earlier.. correct anything out of spec..

Well thanks to you guys, I got grounded again and understand better now, there’s still several maintenance items I need to complete and validate before i chase specific things, like this.
And.. what I learned from all of you about the weave has been invaluable for me!
Thank you very much!!
Nd