How to Install Öhlins Shock - CRF250L

Welcome back, today I am going to do probably the biggest upgrade to my

crf250l

that I have probably ever done and that is replacing the stock

shock

with an Olin

shock

. I got this from src moto. I think they ran out of organ. and this is a big improvement over the stock shock so the stock shock is designed for riders around 100-140 lbs if you increase the preload like I did so I'm at the limit of what this can do and that's just me without my gear once I put the gear on and once I load the bike with anything that isn't suitable, not only that but it has no adjustments other than preload.

This ho429 shock from Olin has compression adjustment and rebound adjustment as well as preload and This comes with a factory set preload that you are supposed to start with. I don't know where to go from here, so I'm going to start there and hope I can easily change it later. It also comes with a stand. support for remote repository as well as a handy set of instructions you can now get it on the olin website but it's nice that they give you a printed version they also have a printed version and I think some Arabic writing and then it comes with an owner's manual that actually has some really good information, like this one, it's written to the quality of documents that you would get in the '50s and '60s, it just explains everything very simply, very directly, in a way that anyone can Understand, for example, when you talk about rebound damping, it gives you a few things to feel while you're on the bike, to tell if you know you're over-cushioned or under-cushioned, for example, if your vehicle feels unstable, loose and bouncy, increase the rebound damping if your vehicle feels hard or bumpy decrease the rebound damping and then for compression it says if the vehicle feels unstable, soft, if it feels low or if it is bottoming out increase the rebound damping compression and if the vehicle feels hard, harsh or grippy especially when accelerating, decrease the compression damping and that's really good information especially if you don't know much about how shock absorbers work but the best part is better that even the shock itself, comes not only with one big sheet of stickers, but it comes with two. big decal sheets olins is doing well, that's worth the price of admission right there, that's worth more than the shock to me.

It's not that hard to get good decals so I'm glad Owens does it so here I go. To show you how to remove this pile of junk and then

install

this glorious work of art, the next step is to remove the rear brake fluid reservoir and that will give you access to the bolt that holds the top of the shock. See it right here, it should be out of focus for you right now, but don't worry, you'll soon become familiar with it, so you should be able to see it. The nut is on the other side and it's actually impossible.

You can't get to it from above on the other side because the crash and then the battery box blocks your way. You can reach through the frame this way, but the way the nut is timed I can't. I didn't put the wrench on it, so my plan is to try to release it from this end and hope that I turn the nut enough to be able to put it on, so if you haven't noticed, the winning combination was a 17 millimeter opening. end on the left side of the bike to hold the nut and then a six point socket and it is very important to have a six point socket on the right side of the bike to release it with a ratchet and I only have half an inch for 3 reducer adapter 8 and I think that's the best way to do it, then just let the washer and nut fall to the floor somewhere and then try to remove that bolt by hand and there we have it, there's the stock shock removing the rear linkages. and the rear linkage bolts are really that easy and then you saw me use some kerosene and a brush to clean these parts and then off camera I just took a rag and pushed these bushings in and then I cleaned the inside of the seal the dirt one Of these seals, let's see if I can find which one is okay, this seal here has this portion about the width of my finger where there is a cut on each side, so there will be a leaky seal for something This way, it's not big thing, but it's not ideal, so what you don't want to do is push these bushings all the way in because the needle bearings here can just fall out and there's nothing to keep them in.

I don't have any bearing cages, so when you're going to re-grease them, I'll just push them halfway in, stick a bunch of grease in there, push it the other way and grease the other side and that. It's more than enough to re-oil everything and the same goes for this one and this one actually has two sets of rollers, there's one in this half and one in that half, something I didn't do. What I know is that they are actually made of cast steel, so if you wanted to take a little more weight off the bike because they are so heavy, buy some CNC billet aluminum versions of these, you would probably end up dropping them.

It's probably not strictly necessary to take another whole pound off the bike, but you know just one of those things you can do and like I said, I also cleaned the fasteners. You can actually tell this bra was at the bottom because it is the most corroded. You can tell this was the leading edge of this triple pivot mechanism because of all the rock chips and rust on there, so to re-grease them, I'm just going to use some sticky red grease, the manual just says. You need a grease that meets NLGI number two, so use whatever you want.

I don't think it makes much difference. The book will specify if you need some Molly disulfide grease and this is not the place that asks for that, so if you want. use some high molybdenum grease, you know, you can do it, but Honda doesn't think it's necessary now, chances are most of what you put in there will come right out because there really isn't that much. volume for this fat to fill, but you still want to pack it in there as much as you can. Honda is pretty stingy with grease at the factory, although I will say everything looks pretty good for this bike and my bike has just under 3000 miles on it, I was actually going to re-grease the entire rear linkage at 3000 miles , but since I got the new rear shock, obviously I'll do it now while everything is separated again. very liberal with the grease, there's nothing wrong with putting too much because it will only take what you need and then whatever comes out just wipe the grease off it's pretty cheap so you don't really have to worry about wasting it and then just wipe the grease off. excess and that's it, I'm going to remove whatever's left inside these, I'm just going to leave it there and then when I push the bolt in, it's going to help grease them up and then again.

I'll just clean it again once everything is on the bike, something that src moto has on their website as supplemental instructions in addition to what uh olins gives you is that the outlet of the hard or soft line of the shock should be facing rearwards the bike with the hose coming out to the left side of the bike so if you don't it probably won't fit quite right so I think I just had to remove the chain guard there and now it should be able to fit. over here without too much trouble now oh, I'm already scratching the anodizing, I wonder if that's possible or was I supposed to come up here?

Let me check my instructions. Well, I had the right place. I just forgot a step and that. is to remove the front sprocket or at least get it out of the way, but that doesn't seem to be what attaches it, it seems to be attached between this part of the engine case and the frame, so we'll see if this may help or not, so I have this piece of thick wall aluminum tubing that is almost exactly the same diameter and a little longer than the remote reservoir and I just want to see if I can test it and yes, it does.

It just barely fits through here, but I think with the added restriction of the high pressure hose it makes it a lot harder to try to get through this tight spot, there we go, I can't get the whole shock up there because of the braided line, like this that I'll try this another way and just push everything up from the beginning and see if that helps, no that's not going to work or should I say that's a pretty big radius, you need like six hands. to do this job here we go so what you really need is someone to help you with this or have a little more foresight than me because I left the bolt on the bench that is about 20 feet away from me and this is just It's going to fall if I don't have some way to hold it up, so be smarter than me, so the only way I'll be able to show you where this is is that it's hidden behind this loom of cables here and you probably can't see it from any angle, it's right there and I have to stick a wrench in here to try to capture the nut and that's how I've decided that I'm going to hold that nut that I just had. a couple layers of electrical tape that will hold the nut in place and then I can just stick it in there and then use the bolt on the other side.

What will also be difficult is trying to get this washer in there and I do that. Sorry, I'm probably going to completely block your view of this whole thing, but there's not much I can do about it right now. Honda has a torque spec for this, but I don't know what it is. Off the top of my head, the manual is inside and I don't even have a half-inch torque wrench to get it up to spec, so I'm going to tighten it as much as I can without breaking any of that tape. The trick really works like a charm, the next step is to mount the remote repository.

To do this you have to remove these two engine case bolts which are not tight at all and don't need to be tightened, they don't hold anything structural so it's just holding the gasket in place, make sure you don't mix them up. case they are different lengths but they are the same so if you do you will be lucky and then replace them all good I had it backwards it is supposed to go this way it will mount a little closer to the engine and If you put the bushing in the right position it will work a little better.

I'm going to squeeze those hands for now and pass them on now. The real key here is to mount this so that the hose doesn't rub against the frame, which for me you're really going to want to do so that this is timed so that it doesn't rub against the frame as it gets in the way. with the bolt on what I think is the thermostat cover and that's worse than rubbing the frame and I think right there we'll probably do it now you know what I probably have this backwards but it fits so I'll try to work with it and it'll keep it a little tighter to the motor and out of the way of my leg, so if anything I can tighten it off camera and the next step is to put the sprocket back on. and then I'll start putting the rear linkage on, so I'll put the sprocket off the camera and then we'll meet you when we're putting the rear linkage back together, okay, it was my fault, I actually had this plastic bracket on. the other way around I didn't realize that until after I turned off the camera, but now you know that's how it's supposed to look good, so this is a test drive and I can say that it's already a big improvement, now on Last week's video I said that it would be next week when I would

install

this and give it a good test.

Turns out it's actually just the next day because as soon as I got home from that ride the rear shock showed up so I installed it the next day so I have a very new idea in my mind of what this bike felt like. yesterday compared to how you feel today. The setting I have now is the factory preload setting which is about half the screw length for preload and then I have 12 clicks on compression and 16 clicks on rebound and I already feel like I probably want to go with a little less bouncing, maybe do 18 clicks and try to make it feel like it's building up a little bit, but I will say that even what I have now in a setting that is not ideally tuned is much better than the original setting;

It's actually even more comfortable than the previous spring even though it's a stiffer spring and overall has stiffer damping and that surprises me. Another thing is that the wheel hop is completely gone, there's no more wheel hop on washboard gravel or you know, medium sized potholes and that really surprises me, it's completely gone now. The only other difference between yesterday is that yesterday it was running at 30 psi. tire pressure and today I'm running 25 so I'm sure a little bit of what I feel is 5 psi, but still, even when I was going from 30 psi to 12 psi with the previous suspension, I never really felt much or no difference in the way it handled, it was pretty much the same regardless of tire pressure, so doing this is already much easier, the bike feels much more controlled, it doesn't jump all over the place, disconcerting me .

I have only beendriving this for about six miles and I can already tell if you have one of these bikes or really if you have any of these modern dual sport bikes that I come with, you know, very soft suspension, save money, sell an organ, rent something. You know, rent your kids out for a few days, whatever it takes, get one of these shocks on the back, it's a big difference from the previous suspension that I never would have done. I've been able to go so fast on this type of terrain, It's just floating above everything.

Now replacing that front suspension made me able to go a bit. There is a big rock again, it made me able to go a little faster, but not that fast. What a difference. Yeah, this is a really amazing transformation, so I think if I put my luggage on this for motorcycle camping, I would really have to increase the preload a little more, which is unfortunate because it is very difficult to adjust on this bike that I would love have. I got a shock from Olin with the remote preloaded. You know, hydraulic preload adjustment would have been awesome, but it wasn't.

It wasn't really an option for what I have, but maybe I can add it. changing the spring will be more money of course, yes the bike doesn't just wander around all over the place anymore, it actually allows me to control the steering a lot more, I think a lot of that is due to how bad the previous suspension was. I was bouncing around so much that my inputs didn't really mean much, I was just going to go where I was bouncing to go anyway, so one good thing about the old suspension is that because it was so poorly tuned, it encouraged you. to take your time and go slow, enjoy the landscape where this suspension only wants to make you go faster and faster, and faster.

I still think the front is a little stiff, but I still can't complain too much, I mean, I can go. about 30 to 40 miles per hour on this now or before 20 was the top I was comfortable with before we crashed over those two huge ruts but now it just floats over them, part of that is because I'm going faster fast. Of course, but wow, I'm amazed at the transformation. Also, the bike feels a little more stable now, even in this, uh, really loose. I hate this loose, fresh, crushed rock they put in, it sucks you in like sand and I almost crashed. times, but now that you know this suspension is better tuned, it feels much more stable, okay, let's try this downhill section a little faster, okay, going at 30 degrees, it's important to focus more on where you're going. and less on your actual speed, on the one hand I feel like I made this modification at the right time as I was able to take my time and appreciate the bike in its original form, so now I can appreciate it even more because it has more performance capability. but on the other hand I wish I had done this much sooner.

I feel like it would have allowed my skill to improve a little faster but it's okay we don't need you you don't always need to be in such a rush to do everything sometimes taking your time even when it comes to improving things is okay I feel like the compression It's pretty accurate but I want to redo that bounce just a very steep hill the camera never makes anything look good it always makes everything look very flat everything is always steeper than it looks on the camera so there we have it. I'm really happy with this olin for the win, so I hope you enjoyed it until next time.

See you.