Update on the sag-a:

Rider position makes a difference. I'm tallish, 6'1"+. and tend to sit pretty far back on the seat. In addition I've had my footpegs moved backwards better than 2". So when I sit on the bike in my normal position the forks hardly move. If I scooch forward to the "hole", the part of the seat right up against the tank, the forks compress quite a bit. I still only get around 60mm of compression but moving forward does make the springs front and back feel more balanced. For a putterer like me that's probably fine.

Head shake: sitting back like I do, and having the footpegs back, biases my weight towards the rear, slacks off the fork angle, and contributes to a slowish feeling in the steering, sometimes even a bit of oversteer. I'd tried to fix that by raising the forks about 5-6mm in the clamps. That little change appears to have contributed to the head shake at interstate speeds. It also made the steering skittish on trails. Just that little bit. I dropped the forks back as low as they would go and went out for a speed run yesterday and the steering was solid as a rock up to as fast as I could go. The oversteer is back but, oh well - I can live with it. I like having the pegs back, gives me more room, making the bike more comfy, and makes climbing a cinch. But it does seem to have imbalanced things towards the rear a bit.

I may just have to concede that I may be better off with a bigger bike. But I'm not giving up. My next mod this: I have a spare swingarm I got off ebay. I'm going to take it to welder (eventually) and have it lengthened by 32mm (1.25 inches). My hope is that this will bias the weight back up front, give some more stability out there in the desert, and . . . well, we'll see. I'll still have the stock swingarm if this little project is a bust.

 

Guido, how's your overall travel, dive characteristics, and small bump compliance? On setting up the fork and trying to find an exacting sag while sitting still, this can be fuzzy sometimes from fork-to-fork. Are you getting full travel off road? Do you have harsh bottomout too frequently? Is you're small bump compliance satisfactory?

Here's another issue that's perhaps associated with our '06/'07 models. We have 11" of travel, and it's a bit hard to get ideal suspension characteristics for both pavement and off road IMO. Which is your priority?

 

See, I don't know all this stuff. I'm relatively new to the sport so I don't have a lot of experience to make critical evaluations. And I don't get out as much on the KLX as many of you do. For me a successful trip is staying on the bike and not hurting myself. I haven't even messed with the damping settings on the fork. It would be nice to set up a course that could be run over and over, making small changes to the settings, and really learn what causes what. Maybe lay out some two by fours and run over them. then four by fours, then 6 bys, etc.

I know I rarely bottom out, but that may say more about my riding. Slow. I can say that the bottom of my dust line on the forks is pretty far down there so I'm getting good action out of them.

Steering, however, I think I know. My KLR has sweet steering - light at slow speeds, easy do slow figure 8s, but steady at 80 mph. The KLx is heavier, ploughs a bit.

Priority for the KLX? Dirt. Got the KLR for the road.

 

Let us know how things go as you progress. I'm still very curious about your .42 springs. That's pretty light for your weight. Still, there is lattitude for preference and how people ride that can change things quite a bit.

 

Allright. I'm going to try my 2x4 idea out in a parking lot down the street. maybe see if I can get in touch with those "clickers". I can tell you already t hat I like the feel of the front end better with the 42 springs than with the stock springs. More solid.

 

Interesting development.

So riding in the dirt with the new 42 springs up front and not much in the way of fork sag was feeling really squirely. The front end wanted to oversteer, or plough, in the corners. What's up? I called John at MotoPro and he thought the spring rates sounded fine (though I know TNC thinks they are too light) and that sag in the forks was notoriously hard to measure. But he did suggest I check my fork alignment, basically to see if the forks were parallel with each other. The procedure is on his website. So I loosened the axle clamp bolts on the right fork (non brake side) and wiggled the fork along the axle till I felt like it was naturally centered and cinched the bolts back down. Voile! The forks now sag when I sit on the bike. The oversteer is gone, the steering is once again sharp, and the suspension feels pretty good.

How about that? Silly little thing like a slightly binding fork and it messed up the steering. Stands to reason - the forks weren't compressing freely, apparently. So check that alignment!

 

Looks like TNC called it again!! way to go. Happy that it worked out for you.

 

Glad that it turned out to be something relatively simple. It doesn't take much stiction, binding, or bend in a fork leg to cause that. They are so freakin' sensitive compared to the way the rear shock and linkage work.

 

I suppose this is a "heads up" for whenever we remove the front wheel for tire change or flat repair? Good to know. Thanks for the post.

 

The only times I've ever tweeked my bikes forks was in a get off, never ever from changing tires.