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

Hi John Talley here with Partzilla.com, and welcome back to our build a 2018 Honda Grom series. Today we're going to focus on the

suspension

. Now, the parts that we're 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 change it into a stock slider and tube. Now the other part we're going to use is a rear

shock

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

Now what's good about this? When we finish building it, we'll actually give it away. So if you want, 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 over, why don't you leave this little note in the comments section and tell us which machine you'd like me to mod and then we'll give it away. 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 has been broken down quite a bit, so if you're doing this from the start, you would end up having to remove your seat in the rear tail section.

And once you've got that out of the way, we're going to have to go a little further. There's a lockout bracket I need to remove on this side and then I need to remove, in quotes, the rear lower fender. Once I get it out of the way I'm going to bring the floor jack up, support the machine from the middle, and then we can remove the two bolts and then put it in there, I thought we'd start with the easy and first and then deal with the

fork

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

This just got some 5mm bolts 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 have to remove the muffler and then we'll get this out of the way. So what we'll do is loosen this up and then make the muffler slide out of the way. Alright, where the seat release lock is, there's a bracket. Screw here, then one above. They are both Phillips. That should get out of the way enough for us to get to that top bolt for the shock. Here we go.

So now we can get to both. Let's go ahead and put the jack under there and just support it so it doesn't topple over when we drop it. 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, don't go down. Let's see if we can at least pop without having to hold the other side yet. Yes, look there. There is one. There are two. Check out your difference here, kids: fully adjustable, spring rate, compression, rebound. Absolutely not adjustable. Alright, let's get back together.

Now let's put this backwards for clarification. 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 deposit ends up sticking out on one 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 now use the original nuts and bolts that came off this, and will bring it back to factory spec of 34 pound-feet for both the lower and upper. Alright, all we have to do now is go ahead and reassemble this bracket for the lockout switch and then reassemble the lower rear fender.

Then reinstall the muffler and then we can do the fun part - the front forks. Okay, easy parts over, let's really dive into those forks now. So what I'm going to do next is take the bike out, turn it around, hold the front end and pull those forks, and then we'll dive right into it. 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 they're going to be really hard to keep still, and the clamps are doing a hell of a job right now, so let's take advantage of that. and at least go ahead and release them.

What I'm doing now is taking the handlebars off because yeah I could grab a big wrench and pop them off but when I go to put them 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 we'll go ahead and lower the handlebars where we have easy access to these front covers. Now, if you want to make sure that the handlebars are back in exactly the right position, go ahead and make a couple of marks to make it easier to realign them. when you go to reinstall them.

Here we go. That will give us plenty of room to move around. And these are both 36. Very good, good enough. 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 they are easily damaged. It also looks like they had red loctite in there, so we'll add that back in when we go to reinstall. A pair of 12 in our gauge. There she goes. Pretty tight with those two. Next, let's take out the axle bolts. You should be able to loosen the clamps.

Alright, we've got the right one, let's go over to the disassembly table and start taking this apart. So I have it tight in our vise, just have a little towel in there to keep it from scratching. 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 want to make sure that your table is clean. All the surfaces you will be working on are clean, because you don't want foreign contaminants getting inside your forks. Next, we'll grab that and then we'll take off 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 running from one side of the diagram to the other. Now let's go ahead and dump the oil and pump it out. When you're doing this, you don't want to pull the lower fork tube all the way out because we're really going to leave it that way. There's no real reason for us to take out the stamps, because that's not what we're after. 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. Let's hope this is over and then we'll continue to disassemble it.

Alright, Ohlins makes a special tool to hold this, and what you're basically doing is creating a clamp and it's actually putting a protrusion inside one of these holes to hold it still. Well, I didn't buy that tool. What I did was I already had a 31-millimeter seal driver. All I did was drill a hole and then put an 8mm pin through it. Now there's a little bit of a rough edge on this tool, so what we're going to do is wrap a piece of paper around it because we're not actually clamping the tube, we're just clamping this pin on one. of those holes.

That is all we are trying to achieve. And when I get it in there, I'll just drop it in, put it in the vise, and that should hold it still. Now all of that doesn't fall apart, I'm actually going to tape it down. A modified special tool. That should do. Now the fun begins. I'm going to grab a heat gun, bring this to around 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 actually going to turn it clockwise to loosen it up.

So, 185, 184. Let's try it. Yes, resist the urge to grab this with your bare hands. You will not be happy. Keep in mind that the tubes will also be quite hot. While all that Loctite is still warm, let's go ahead and wipe it off the bottom. still lukewarm Alright, now we're going to remove this end cap and this is a 14mm. Alright, these last two threads, you're going to reach your hand because Spring will try to pull it out and the washer. Not a lot of pressure, but just 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 fine. That is what we were looking for. So, we have everything completely taken apart now, but there are a couple of parts we need to remove the stock damper rod and transfer to the new Ohlins. Now the one we're going to start with is going to be the rebound side, and you can tell we're on the rebound side because this little ring here is called the piston ring. And the flat side is forced against this end of the shock.

And we're actually going to remove it and transfer it to our bounce side of our new Ohlins part. And you know this is the one on the bounce 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 about which one, which one? You can tell because your spring is at the bottom of this bracket. So to remove this piston ring, we just want to carefully expand it enough to get the old damper rod out and then we'll reinstall it on the Ohlins part.

The other part we're going to transfer is this return spring, and that's all we'll need from this particular part. So let's put this damper rod back into the fork tube. Next we are going to put the springs in and I have decided to go with a heavier one for both of them. They send it with a 5.5 and a 6, we are going to go with the six. I'm guessing the person who's going to win this is my size, so we're going to go with the biggest. At this point we need to put our tool back in and then clamp it back into the vise.

It is essential that you align it correctly. Once again, let's glue these two halves together so they don't fall off when we put them in the vise. So now we put a couple of new parts. 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 as we put it on. And let's take this to 40 Newton-meters, or 29.5 foot-pounds. Now let's get it out of the vise and start working on the other end. Next, let's grab our circlip and snap it into place.

Look how strong my fingers are here. Now we'll just slide it down and into that slot. Here we go. So with our circlip on we take the Ohlins washer and of course you want the chamfered side to face the circlip. Next, take the rubber nub that was on the old top cap, insert it into the new Ohlins, and snap it into place. Then we'll take the Ohlins lock washer and bolt, apply some Loctite, insert it, and then torque it to 15 Newton meters. Here we go. Then let's go ahead and put it back in the vise and then fill it with 235 milliliters of fork oil.

And I'm actually using five weights from Maxima, but if you wanted to use the Ohlins, we have that as well. 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'm going to go with that. And as we pour it, you have to move the valve up and down to let the air out and the liquid in. Otherwise, it won't take it to fill the top. So keep that in mind as you pour it. So we're going to grease this o-ring a little bit and then we can put this cap on.

Now we won't do our final torque until we actually put it back in the machine, where the machine actually clamps it in the clamps. And that is what will be tightened to the end. But right now, we just have to reseal it. Now we're going to get it out of its vise. What we're going to do next is get some Loctite. We'll lightly thread 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 need to make sure you have one that spans at least two and a quarter to two and a half inches, which I had. .

And guess what? We'll finish with this fork. Here is the only thing that is different from one fork to the other: the compression, you can see that 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've removed in terms of steering your factory damper rods, this is the way Ohlins are set up. You have to make sure that it's always pointing, no matter which side you're talking about, towards that little spring right there. If you have that with the nubs pointing in that direction?

You have it. So let's install these things. Take care when inserting them so as not to scratch them. Just maybe a millimeter above the edge right there. We'll just tighten them for now, then we'll go back and set the torque. Each of the jack bolts is torqued to 27 Newton meters or 20 pound-feet. And then when you're doing this, especially the bottom ones, do one, then the other, and then go back and check the first one. Make sure it is still at the same torque value. And let's go back. See? I had to go back and then bring him some more because that other one whoit went down and gave a false reading the first time.

Alright, let's jump in and do the other side. Now with those adjusted, we're going to hit those upper bounds. This is going to be 30 Newton meters or 22 pound-feet. Here we go. Let's get our clamps back together. Remember correctly at the beginning of this I made a little dot showing the correct position. Another point that you need to pay attention to is the upper part of the clamp. You want it to face forward, and that's also the end that gets squeezed first. We press this down and then we go to the back. Now we will remove them later when we start working on the air fuel management system.

Because there's actually going to be an air-fuel ratio gauge that's going to mount there, a readout for it. But put it back together for now. Now just need to fit the front tire and caliper and then the fender and that's pretty much done with this. And we're going to bring that front nut up 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 red loctite on it. And then once we have it, we'll bring it down to 22 pound-feet. Just pushing our caliper pistons back to make it easier to move on the rotor.

Next, we are going to place our speed sensor and the associated cable holder. Now let's carefully slide our fender into place. Well it's alright guys. That pretty much wraps this up, but as you can see I still have some work to do. So if you want to be notified when that happens, why not go ahead and subscribe? Hear if the contest is still going on why not check out the link in the description below that way you can be entered to win this. But cheer up, if the contest is over why not leave us a comment telling us which machine you'd like to see me 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.