Tiger 955 Soggy Bottom

Hi all,

I’ve just recently acquired an 03 Tiger 955 and it’s generally in pretty good shape other than seemingly having a particularly soft rear end. The ride home seemed more like riding on a North Sea ferry.

move had a look at stiffening the preload but I don’t think that’s working and I need to have a look at the damping adjuster to see if that makes a difference.

If my fears are confirmed, is there a really long spacer that goes into the swing arm that the bottom mount sits on, like the later ones or is it just a long bolt with a thread at the end? I can’t see how the spacer would be fitted into a hole that only seems to have one open end if you needed to remove it to change the shock.

I had toyed with the idea of fitting the swing arm off a later unit, is that doable without any issues? I assume the frame wasn’t changed or did they move the mounting point for the shock top? I also assume that the wheels are the same offset/width as I’ve seen an early one with the cast wheels fitted.. just wondered if I could do it the other way round if that was an option and I couldn’t retrieve the spacer from the original.
Any thoughts/tips would be helpful.