Ohlins Nix30 2014 R Forks

Well, it is absolutely amazing what one 0.006" thick shim with a 16mm OD and a change in fluid can do to the ST1200RS' forks. I'm now in love.

 

Not sure I understand your post Glenn.

Are you saying your forks were at 130mm (oil level), you changed it to 90mm and the front was less harsh? I set my oil level at 130mm per the manual.

 

Even after the cross over shim, I still felt the higher speed compression was a bit too harsh. The bike was much much better but I could not resist one more change. I reduced the first three 28mm shims from .15mm to .10mm. The low speed adjuster went from 21 out to 5 out and I'm even happier.

 

My understanding from the NIX30 cartridge manual is that the smaller the air gap, the greater the "spring rate" of the air spring is and thus the higher the overall spring rate of the fork. This is why I questioned things getting better.

BTW, if you went far enough to remove the fork and change the oil you were nearly all the way to revalving. If you look at the manual, you'll see there is about another 15 minutes of effort

 

I should have shot a video on the shim thing but it is straight out of the manual step by step. I just put one crossover shim in the stack in position three when I reassembled. Otherwise it was just doing a fork service as outlined by Triumph.

I too did an oil change. The kinetic viscosity of the fluid I used was close to that which came out of the forks but the seal stiction is way way down. Absolutely love the bike now and it responds as good or better than my active Ohlins bikes.

 

Sounds good.
Can you expand on this a bit please as in how do you identify the high and low speed sections and how do you decide how much to add or remove?
Also are you saying you ADDED a 0.006" shim, or did you take one away?

I think I want to do similar to my Kove 450 rally especially the low speed compression and bring it back into range from 21 of 22 clicks out, down to single figures as you've done.

The forks on big hits and jumps works ideal, so I don't want to spoil that end of the range.

 

Well, it is absolutely amazing what one 0.006" thick shim with a 16mm OD and a change in fluid can do to the ST1200RS' forks. I'm now in love.

and

Even after the cross over shim, I still felt the higher speed compression was a bit too harsh. The bike was much much better but I could not resist one more change. I reduced the first three 28mm shims from .15mm to .10mm. The low speed adjuster went from 21 out to 5 out and I'm even happier.



So the black art (read, experience) of fork valving consists of having tried stuff in the past and had it work along with a willingness to go at it several times to get to where you want to be.

In this case, I spoke with a friend who is a long long time motocrosser and has spent countless hours messing with forks. His suggestion was to add what is referred to as a "cross over" sim to the stack. In practice, it means adding a small diameter shim behind the first number of large diameter shims at the bottom of the stack (near or up against the valve) to allow those initial shims to bend just a bit easier to crack open a bit when loaded. This adds a path for a bit of fluid flow under relatively low pressure which gives you more low speed bypass and softens just a little bit the lower speed response.

As noted in my posts I quoted above, I tried this and it made a world of difference. Per the first post, I purchased a .006" thick 16mm OD shim and placed it between the third and forth shim in the stack (IIRC, I need to go back to my maintenance records and verify exact positioning). This lesser diameter shim allowed the outer edges of the first three shims to crack open with less pressure. This worked nicely but I wanted just a little softer low speed.

For grins, I changed the first three 26mm OD shims from .15mm to .1mm. That was likely a tad too much but I've been too lazy to go back and change the first shim back to .15mm. I'm running at about 4-5 clicks out on the low speed compression with the three thinner first shims where going back to the thicker for the first shim would probably put me around 8-10 clicks out. Not a big deal which is why I've not bothered to change it. I'll get it the next time forks are off for fluid changing.

It is best to find a shop and buy the single shims from them. Ohlins sells them in 25 pcs packages which is a bit much if you are not doing it a lot. I've dealt with .15mm and .10mm shims with ODs from 16mm to 28mm. You can reach out to your in country Ohlin's dealer and they will normally give you the build sheet for your OEM Ohlins product using the laser etched serial number on the inside surface the caliper hanger area on the fork foot. The build sheet has everything from the shim stack to the valve part number along with every other component in the build by part number. IIRC, the shim stack in my 1200RS front manual adjustable forks (FL9510) was something like 3 .15mmx26mm, 2 15x24, .15x22, .15x20, .15x18, .15x16,,,,. I stuck one .15mm x 16mm shim between the first three 26mm and second two 24mm shims in the stack as a first pass then made the first three 26mm shims thinner on the second pass.

It all sounds so terribly complicated until you realize I stuck one $1 washer in the stack of washers on the first pass and swapped three $1 washers out on the second pass

Hope this helps.

 

As far as how you identify what does what, look at that conical stack of washers and just think about how they bend up when fluid is pushed against them. You can play with numbers of washers, thickness of washers and diameters of washers to change how much fluid gets to sneak by at differing pressures. If you want to get crazy, you can even switch out the valve that the washers land on (size and number of holes in the valve) which affects the flow area facing the shims. I've never had the patience to do this and, judging by the build sheets for my Aprilia, Ducati and the Triumph all using Ohlins front forks, neither does Ohlins when they are building forks for this class of bike.

 

Excellent thanks.
The Kove 450 runs YU-AN forks which are a direct copy apparently, to a SHOWA design. Using your info above, I'll try to crossover the details to suit accordingly.

Thanks

 

Thanks lolachampcar. I have a 2020 ST1050RS. I had a 2016 ST1050R before that, but the RS's Ohlins suspension, supposedly identical, is much, much harder. The RS was hopeless on anything but smooth hotmix. I had an Ohlins specialist soften the left fork leg and shock by modifying the compression shim stacks. That made the ride mostly bearable, but still much firmer than the R and also my Ohlins-equipped 2006 BMW R1200S. Now that I've sold the BMW, the Triumph is my only bike, and I'm ready to have another go at its suspension. I love the bike otherwise. Your transition shim modification looks good for the left fork, I'll get the Ohlins tools and do similar.
But what did you do with your rear shock? Mine needs compression damping modification as much as the front end does.
IanB

 

Ian,
I've got it mostly full soft compression and about 3/4s out rebound. I'm 220 lbs and find the rear acceptable now even without re-valving the rear damper. My shock buddy has the tools and says it's simple but the bike is good enough for me right now.

BTW, first Triumph for me and I love the bike. Oh what I've been a missing all these years.

 

OK, based on your advice, I've done some research. The Triumph service manual shows that, for the fork, I need the fork cap tool, the cartridge tool and the 17mm spanner. The shaft pull up tool does not seem to be really needed. For the shock, the main thing is to be able to pressurise it. Cheapest way for a small number of uses seems to be a kit on Ebay with a disposable nitrogen bottle, regulator and a short hose with a schrader valve adapter, plus a needle filler/pressure gauge tool.

I have the spec card for the shock from the Ohlins specialist 3 years ago, but not for the fork. The compression stack was (all 0.15mm/0.006"), 20/18/16/14/12/10. The specialist appears to have simply deleted the 10. Now that I know that a transition shim makes the shock curve more progressive, I'll add the 10 back in, change the 20 and 18 to 0.10mm/0.004", insert a 0.15mm x 10mm behind the 18. At the front, I’ll copy you, if my compression stack is the same as yours anyway. I have not found the build info on the fork leg yet.

The build date for the shock is Nov 2016, 3 years before it was built into my bike in Hinckley. Yet it's so different to my 2016 ST1050R. From other comments on forums, it looks as if the bikes have the Ohlins NIX30/TTX36 suspension as advertised, but the shim stacks supplied by Ohlins are more or less random.

IanB

 

Ian,
My fork build is 9510.
The shim stack I found inside the forks was-
3 x .15 x 26
2 x .15 x 24
.15 x 22
.15 x 20
.15 x 18
.15 x 16
.5 x 10
.2 x 12

My first change was to add the .15 x 10mm shim between the 3 26s and the 2 24s. This is the crossover shim.

I wanted a bit more softening to try to get my low speed adjuster more in the mid range so I changed the first three 26mm shims from .15mm thick to .1mm thick. In reading my post above, I mistyped 28mm for the first three shims when I should have typed 26mm.

One last note which is controversial for some. I always change my fork oil over to Mobil 1 synthetic ATF. It comes in a regular and a low viscosity formula. In this case, I used the LV formula. From my perspective, hydraulic fluid is hydraulic fluid. The synthetic fluid dramatically reduces fork stiction so all my bikes get it (street and dirt bikes).

Lastly, I got all the tools from a UK based company including the rod pull up tool (which is simple and very useful) for not much money. No need to buy the fancy Triumph labeled stuff. I'll see if I can find the name.

 

https://gbmotorcycleproducts.com

Also found a bunch of stuff on Amazon when I searched for GB's site.