Arctra, my comment about the rear shock is in the context of dualsport bikes...not plated race bikes. It's a very decent KYB that is fully rebuildable and fully capable of revalving. Even its "as delivered" condition is quite decent...not the same thing can be said for the fork. Look at the POS on the new Honda 250L that they call a shock.

Yeah, on the part of the discussion about the right bike for the job, even a guy like me who had top quality race bikes back in the day and who still gets to ride some modern steeds via my dirt bike club members, I like the niche that my KLX fits...after mods, of course...for long dual sport rides that have a decent level of gnar. The bike is darned near indestructible. I hardly ever have to work on it. It was cheap...even though I've added a few mods since I bought it used.

 

Well, my Husky is very sick again, but I really wanted to ride today, so I took the trusty KLX out. Wow, what a different bike to the Husky!

It didn't take too long to get used to the seating position on the bike again, but it is definitely more cramped than my Husky. Still didn't feel uncomfortable though. Well, not till I started riding. That's when I realised just how drastically different the suspension is. At first I thought that the KLX suspension was mediocre compared to the Husky, which isn't too bad considering the KLX only has springs for my weight whereas I've had the full monty spring/revalve/rebound seperator value/etc done to the Husky suspension. But as I rode more and got faster it just felt worse and worse. By the time I pulled up at lunch I was ready to stop coz I felt the bike was seriously beating me up, and I was asking too much of the suspension.

My research on the steering stem bearings side of things hasn't been great. From what I can figure out the Husky steering stem is a uniform 29mm whereas the KLX is 30mm at the bottom and 25mm at the top. I can get a bearing with a 30mm inside diameter and and outside diameter of 55mm which will sort out the bottom fine. But at the top I cannot find a bearing with an inner diameter of 29mm/30mm and an outside diameter of 47mm to fit at the top. And from the Husky manual I cannot seem to see whether there is a bearing there on the husky or not. So I think I'll have to actually try fitting it up before I'll know.

My preliminary measurements of the KLX shock and the Husky shock are surprisingly similar. I think there's a good chance the Husky shock will fit in the KLX which would be great!

I am going to try and fix the Husky before I bin it and try move the suspension to the KLX. But if I cannot get the Husky sorted I may be embarking on this project sooner than I thought.

One thing I did realise today is that if I am going to try and move the suspension across I had better be careful to take measurements of rear, middle and front heights of both the Husky and the KLX to see how similar they are. I suspect the KLX is going to end up a bit higher with the Husky suspension and I want to be sure to try get the front/rear balance close to what it is now as a starting point for tuning the fork height etc.

Now to see if I can fix the Husky...