Honda Grom Suspension Upgrade | Ohlins Shock and Ohlins Fork Grom Install | Partzilla.com

Hello John Talley, here with Partzilla.com, and welcome back to our 2018 Honda Grom build series. Today we'll be focusing on the

suspension

. Now the parts we are going to use are actually two separate part numbers. You have one that is the complete

fork

shock

, and it will have your compression and rebound side along with all the other parts you will need to swap it out for a stock slider and tube. Now the other part that we are going to use is an Ohlins rear

shock

absorber. It's actually fully adjustable, with compression and rebound adjustments. It really is a good unit and will make a big difference in the handling of this machine.

Now the good thing about this? When we finish building it, we will give it away. So if you like, check the link in the description below. It will take you to a landing page where you can enter to win. But if the contest is already over, why don't you leave this little note in the comments section and tell us which machine you would like me to modify and then give it away for free? So if you're ready, we'll dive into this. Just to give you an overview of what we're about to do... and now that this is pretty much broken down, if you do this from the beginning, you'll end up having to remove your seat in the back section of the queue.

And once you get that out of the way, we're going to have to go a little further, there's a locking bracket that I need to remove on this side and then I need to remove, among other things, the rear lower fender. Once I get that out of the way, I'll bring in the floor jack, support the machine from the middle and then we can remove the two bolts and then put it in there. I figured we'd start the easy way first and then deal with the

fork

s later in the day. Let's start with this lower fender first.

This just has a few five millimeter bolts going through it. The real trick is on the other side, I don't think there is enough room to go around the exhaust. We may end up having to remove the muffler and then we'll get this thing out of the way. So what we're going to do is loosen this up and then get the muffler out of the way. Alright, where the seat release lock is there is a bracket. Screw here, then one above. They are both Phillips. That should move out of the way enough so we can get to the top bolt for the shock.

Here we go. So now we can get to both. Let's go ahead and put the jack in there and support it so it doesn't collapse when we release them. You should do that. What you have is a 14 on the bolt side and a 17 on the nut side. It's like it's the same thing, don't go down. Let's see if we can at least explode without having to hold the other side yet. Yes, look there. There is one. There are two. Look at the difference here, kids: fully adjustable, spring rate, compression, rebound. Absolutely not adjustable. Alright, let's get back together.

Now let's turn this upside down to make it clearer. Now, if this bothers you and you don't want to

install

it, you know, the other way around, they make one... it's Ohlins, where the remote repository is. The tank ends up protruding from the side. I have no problem

install

ing one of these things backwards, so that's what I'm going to do. Here we go. Done with that for now. We're now using the original nuts and bolts that came out of this, and we'll bring it back to factory specs of 34 foot-pounds for both the lower and upper. Alright, all we need to do now is go ahead and reassemble this bracket for the lock switch and then reassemble the lower rear fender.

Then reinstall the muffler and then we'll do the fun part: the front forks. Okay, with the easy parts out of the way, let's now delve into those forks. So what I'm going to do next is take off the bike, turn it over, hold the front end and pull those forks, and then we'll dive into them. So we're getting ready to remove the front tire, the caliper and then we'll remove the forks. But before we do any of that, let's go ahead and loosen our top caps because it's going to be very difficult to keep them still, and the clamps are doing a great job right now, so let's take advantage of that. and at least go ahead and let them go.

What I'm doing now is taking the handlebar off because yes, I could grab a big wrench and get it loose, but when I go to put it back together, guess what? I have to tighten it back to spec and you won't be able to do it with a wrench. So let's go ahead and lower the handlebars where we have easy access to these front caps. Now, if you want to make sure the handlebars are back in exactly the right position, go ahead and make a couple of marks to make alignment easier. when you go to reinstall them.

Here we go. That will give us plenty of room to move around. And they're both 36. Okay, okay. Now let's remove the front tire and caliper. This is an ABS unit, so you must also disconnect the speed sensor wire. Be careful with it as it is easily damaged. It also looks like they had red loctite in there, so we'll add that back when we go to reinstall it. A pair of 12 in our clamp. There she goes. Pretty tight with those two. Next, let's remove the axle bolts. You should be able to loosen the clamps. Alright, we have the right one, let's go to the disassembly table and start taking this apart.

So I have it clamped in our vise, I just have a little towel in there to keep it from getting scratched. It doesn't have to be very tight because we're just removing this cap that's already loose. And when you do this, you'll want to make sure your table is clean. All surfaces you will be working on are clean, because you don't want foreign contaminants to get on the forks. Next, we'll grab that and then remove the cap. Every time I take one of these apart, I just put them in order. That way I won't spend as much time going back and forth to the diagram.

Now let's go ahead and drain the oil and pump. When you do this, you don't want to completely remove the bottom tube from the fork because we're actually leaving it together. There's no real reason for us to take out the stamps, because that's not what we're going for. We'll let it hang here and finish draining. While you're doing that, I'm going to go ahead and remove the other fork and set it aside. Hopefully this will end and then we'll continue to take it apart. Alright, Ohlins makes a special tool to hold this, and what you're basically doing is creating a clamp and actually putting a bump inside one of these holes to hold it still.

Well, I didn't buy that tool. What I did do is I already had a 31 millimeter stamp driver. All I did was simply drill a hole and then put an 8 millimeter pin through it. Now, there's a little roughness to this tool, so what we're going to do is wrap a piece of paper around it because we're not actually holding the tube, we're just holding this pin in one. of those holes. That's all we're trying to achieve. And when I put it in there, I'm going to drop it, put it in the vise and that should keep it still.

Now that all of that doesn't fall apart, I'm actually going to tape it together. A modified special tool. That should do it. Now the fun begins. I'm going to take a heat gun, bring this up to about 200 degrees and what we're trying to do is break down the Loctite that's inside this particular connection. But here's the really important part: this is a reverse thread, so we're going to turn it clockwise to loosen it. So, 185, 184. Let's try it. Yes, resist the temptation to grab this with your bare hands. You won't be happy. Keep in mind that the tubes will also be quite hot.

While all that Loctite is still hot, let's go ahead and clean it off the bottom. Still warm. Okay, now we're going to remove this end cap and it's 14 millimeters. Alright, these last two threads, you're going to bring your hand closer because the spring is going to try to pull it out and the washer. There's not a lot of pressure, but be prepared for it. Here we go. Cap, our washing machine. Alright, let's go ahead and get this out of the clamp so we can get the damper rod out. That worked well. That's what we were looking for.

So now we have everything completely disassembled, but there are a couple of parts we need to remove the original shock rod and transfer them to the new one from Ohlins. Now the one we're going to start with is going to be the rebound side, and you can say we're on the rebound side because this little ring here is actually called the piston ring. And the flat side is forced against this end of the shock absorber. And we're actually going to take it off and transfer it to our rebound side of our new Ohlins part. And you know this is the rebound side because it was marked inside the packaging, and I also put an R on it, but if you took it out of the packaging and got confused, which is which?

You can tell because the spring is at the bottom of this bracket. So to remove this piston ring, we just want to carefully expand it enough to remove the old shock rod and then we'll reinstall it on the Ohlins piece. The other piece we're going to transfer is this return spring, and that's all we're going to need from this particular piece. So let's put this damper rod back into our fork tube. Next we are going to place the springs and I have decided to use two heavier ones. They send it with a 5.5 and a 6, we go with the six.

I'm guessing the person who's going to win is about my size, so we'll pick the biggest one. At this point we need to reposition our tool and then clamp it back into the vise. It is essential that you align it correctly. Once again, let's tape these two halves together so they don't fall off when we put them in the vise. So now we put in a couple of new pieces. We have a washer and spacer that come with the kit. Now we reinstall the bottom cover. Make sure there is some oil or grease on this O-ring while we put this on.

And we're going to take this to 40 Newton-meters or 29.5 foot-pounds. Now let's take it out of the vise and start working on the other end. Next, let's take our circlip and snap it into place. Look how strong my fingers are here. Now we'll just slide it down and insert it into that slot. Here we go. So with our lock ring on, we take the Ohlins washer and of course we want the beveled side to face the lock ring. Next, you take the rubber bumper that was on the old top cap, insert it into the new Ohlins, and snap it into place.

Then we'll take the crush washer and the Ohlins bolt, apply some Loctite, insert it, and then tighten it to 15 Newton meters. Here we go. Next, let's put it back in the vise and then we'll fill it with 235 milliliters of fork oil. And I'm actually using about five weight Maxima, but if you wanted to use the Ohlins, we have those too. So, it's really up to you which one you want to go with. I've always had good luck with this particular brand, so I'll go with that one. And as we pour it, you have to move the valve up and down to get air out and liquid in.

Otherwise it won't fill the top. So keep that in mind while you pour it. So let's put some grease on this O-ring and then we can put this cap on. Now we won't apply our final torque until we put it back into the machine, where the machine actually holds it in the clamps. And that's what will be tightened completely. But now we just have to reseal it. Now let's get it out of its place. What we're going to do next is get some Loctite. We'll gently run it around the threads, position it, clamp it in the vise, and then tighten it.

Now, here's the real kicker: up to this point I've been using a standard 14. You want to make sure you have one that extends at least two and a quarter to two and a half inches, which I happened to have. . And guess what? We'll finish with this fork. So this is the only thing that is different from one fork to the next: the compression, you can see the springs are on the opposite side of this channel. And that's the direction we want these bumps to face. So regardless of what you took in the direction of the factory damper rods, this is how the Ohlins is set up.

You want to make sure it's always pointing, no matter which side you're talking about, toward that little spring over there. If you have that with the bumps pointing in that direction? You have it. So let's install these things. Be careful when inserting them so as not to scratch them. Maybe just a millimeter above the edge there. We'll just tighten them for now, then we'll come back and adjust the torque. Each of the pressure bolts is torqued to 27 Newton meters or 20 foot-pounds. And then when you're doing these, especially the ones below, do one, then the other, and then go back and check the first one.

Make sure it still has the same torque value. And let's go back. See? I had to go back and then bring it in some more because that other guy took it down and it gave a false reading the first time. Alright, let's jump and do the other side. Now that we have adjusted them, let's touch theupper limits. It will be 30 Newton meters or 22 foot-pounds. Here we go. Let's get our clamps put back together. Remember correctly at the beginning of this, I made a small dot showing the correct position. Another point you should pay attention to is the top of the clamp.

You want it to face forward, and that is also the end that tightens first. We press this one down and then move on to the back one. Now we will remove them later when we start working on the fuel and air management system. Because there will actually be an air-fuel ratio gauge that will be mounted there, a readout of it. But put it back together for now. Now all you have to do is put on the front tire, the caliper and then the fender and that's it. And we're going to take that front nut to 40 foot-pounds.

Here we go. Let's prepare our bolts for the brake caliper bracket. And we are also going to put a little bit of red loctite. And then once we have it on, we'll take it to 22 foot-pounds. Simply push our caliper pistons back to make it easier to move them in the rotor. Next we can snap our speed sensor and associated cable bracket into place. Now let's carefully slide our fender back into place. Well, okay guys. That pretty much wraps this up, but as you can see, I still have work to do. So if you'd like to be notified when that happens, why not go ahead and subscribe?

Listen, if the contest is still going on, why not check out the link in the description below so you can enter to win it? But go ahead, if the contest is over, why not leave us a comment telling us which machine you'd like me to modify next? Listen, we just want to thank you for shopping here with us at Partzilla and we'll see you in the next video. Have a great day.