Whats up everyone, Im new to the forum and it's nice to have found this place. Sure it will be a great deal of help. I have an issue. I am building a 74 DT175 cafe and trying to decide on a proper rear shock and spring. This is going to be a linkless system at about a 55-60 deg angle. I was hoping someone has a bit of knowledge in this area. I understand that linkless use heavier springs and precise spring choice is critical but I cannot find any similar sized road bikes which use this setup. Maybe 7 or 8 kg would be suitable? I am aware of the KTM PDS system but not sure that is a good option for the tarmac. Also, I have seen that heavier road bikes such as the Ducati 900ss and a couple different Buells use linkless. Any chance a modified shock of one of those bikes would do, given they are twice the weight as the DT ?? Thanks for help in advance! Phil in Thousand Oaks, Ca
Linkless suspension suggestions DT175 Cafe
- Thread starter phil.bast
- Start date
Big R
Heaven is so far away.
Ya, I don't have an answer either. But there are 2 members that this post reminded me of. Makosun is real big into the DT bikes so he may have seen something similar to what you are thinking. The other is Beatnic- the guy is my suspension "guru". If you can't find the answer, you may try pm'ing either/both of them.
Thanks, I'll do that if nothing shows here. Glad to be aboard! By the way, the 74 DT used vertical twin springs at the rear with the one piece swinger rather than the later versions which used a diamond swinger (top shock connection) and a very long monoshock that was housed within the frame(spine/top tube) that connected nearly at the headstock under the tank. For my purposes I would have to mount top bracket where frame and sub meet and then bottom bracket at middle of swingarm base just behind pivot.
crazypj
Split personality, I fake being smart
Late models were cantilever suspension with shock inside frame backbone (DT175MX)
You may be able to find an IT but probably pretty rare and expensive?
125 MX Yam should bolt right in and you could get a alloy swing arm from 1980's with DeCarbon shock
leverage ratio is around 1.7:1
Kg shock springs are measured in Kg/mm, do you weigh around 2,000lbs?
8Kg/mm will be close to 450lbs/inch (probably work on front of my Pontiac
)
You may be able to find an IT but probably pretty rare and expensive?
125 MX Yam should bolt right in and you could get a alloy swing arm from 1980's with DeCarbon shock
leverage ratio is around 1.7:1
Kg shock springs are measured in Kg/mm, do you weigh around 2,000lbs?
8Kg/mm will be close to 450lbs/inch (probably work on front of my Pontiac
)
crazypj
Split personality, I fake being smart
I found DT250 and DT400 MX were fine when spring was adjusted right, would use all the travel and needed some more offroad. (mine were modified to give extra inch and a quarter movement)
I managed to break spring collar on 400 and ended up making a new one 25mm thick (original was around 8~10mm)
I managed to break spring collar on 400 and ended up making a new one 25mm thick (original was around 8~10mm)
Think I found a donor. Gonna try a relatively new (08) FZ6 shock with only a couple thousand miles on it. Right size eye to eye and good spring rate. Fortunately FZ6s are linkless as well. Only downside is that shock is not rebuildable, can only change springs. No damper adjustments. Will be a tester unit, see how it goes. For $50 I'll give her a go, plus kinda nice keeping it in the Yamaha family. I'll post pics and results. Thanks for your comments!