shock compressor

Anyone in the San Antonio/S. TX area have a shock compressor? I broke a spring on my Progressive 12s. Z1E has the best prices on new springs but once you get over a certain spring rate, you can't safely take the springs apart by hand.

That's funny George,as I was just looking at this one last night.

SHOCK COMPRESSOR

Thanks Sandy... I went ahead and bought one of their compressors. Interesting thing was that the dollar is now stronger than the Canadian dollar again by just a titch... not much but just a little. It was scarey when the Canadian dollar was worth more than the US$!!!!

Sandy wrote:

That's funny George,as I was just looking at this one last night.

SHOCK COMPRESSOR

They even give you a case to store your medals in! :laugh:

You're welcome,George.Post back with what you think of that unit,so we know,ok.
Ya...the canuck-buck...you guys are definately in the lead again,for sure!:laugh:
It's still acceptable though(for now).:dry:

Post back what I think? OK... FOLLOW UP TIME!

They give you two small compressors. The way they work is there is a sleeve with a bolt and two hooked arms that catch on spring coils. You tighten the bolt and the spring compresses. That is the short answer. The problem is, you MUST use two compressors since this method tends to pull the spring over as it compresses and you compress and pull over on one side, then the other. This doesn't seem like a bad idea but since the coil of the spring is all one piece, the one side tends to want to move around the coil when you tighten the other and you actually have to HOLD the opposite compressor in place while you tighten the other. This means you pretty much have to put the shock in a vise while working on it. Next issue is that you MUST grab the spring about 3 loops from the top to get it compressed enough because these compressors are not very long. This means if you have plastic shrouds that sit over the shock, you will not be able to reuse them when reinstalling a new shim. If you don't have the plastic shrouds it isn't much of an issue. The compressors work but I would look at getting a compressor that didn't rely on grabbing the spring coils if I got another one. These issues are not sufficient for me to want to buy another, just pointing this out. The advantage of the unit is that the little case that holds the two compressors is small enough for a small toolbox.

Next thing I would like to point out is more of a HOW-TO.

To swap out a spring, you first have to compress the spring down below the metal collar on the top of the shock body. This collar fits into a slot beneath the eye. Once you have the collar exposed, you can pop it off the shock easily. The only SECRET is to first put the shock in the position where it has the LEAST preload and this allows you to compress the shock the least to gain the clearance you need.

Took me about an hour to figure out how to get the spring compressed on the first shock and remove the collar using my new compressors. Took me about 5 minutes on the 2nd shock. You do NOT have to use compressors to remove the collar in most cases. You can just push down on the spring a bit to get the collar exposed to enable removal.

i used to clamp the bottem eye of shock in a vise and recruit whatever big person i could find to slide a big screwdriver though the spring and pull down on both sides while i fished out the collar ,but for $26 i think ill invest in one of those also!:laugh:

Getting the collar off isn't the problem. Putting it back on is. I bought 145/190 progressive springs from Z1E. I guess you don't understand how dad-gum stiff those buggers are! You can't hardly compress them and they are needed for folks with larger posteriors I think. I am going to put them on the bike next week. Using a set of stock shocks which are not all that bad but I miss the Progressives.