Full Ohlins Suspension for the Tenere XT660Z
 

Today I had a full Ohlins suspension fitted to the Ten. I intend to write a full report on the changes this has brought to the handling, both on and off road, over the next weeks. To start, the part numbers and fitting details are here. Thanks to all the guys on the forum who have helped me to select the Ohlins setup, I know that others here have fitted the Ohlins rear shock. I don't want to detract from their reviews, which were a valuable resource to me in choosing my set-up, but I don't think anyone's done the whole lot yet.

Like most bikes, my Ten has to perform many different duties, a weekday commuter, an evening bus taking my girlfriend and I to the movies or restaurant, off-piste riding on the weekends and the planned longer distance trips to Africa. Forcing one bike to do all this is asking a lot, yet the Ten copes very well with all these demands. Whilst never excelling in any one area, the Ten admirably copes with all. One of the benefits of this great bike is it's jack-of-all-trades abilities. I should add that I have newer and faster bikes in my garage, but I find that I ride these less and less, as they just aren't as much fun as the Ten. I digress, my point is that the Ten needs to cope with a vastly different weight setup for each role I expect it to perform. My initial concern with the suspension is that although good, the rear would sag to much under load, so rider (and luggage) sag took up nearly half the suspension travel. In addition, when loaded up, the rear wallows over bumps making the bike feel unresponsive and twitchy. I don't load heavily, I weigh 84kg and my luggage (including the weight of my touratech zega-pro panniers is an additional 35kg. Even at these weights the OEM Sachs shock felt tired and wallowy. I never had a problem with the front forks, other than the excessive dive under braking, this I could live with, but if I was going to open them up and service them anyway, I decided to fit the Ohlins springs too. These aren't very expensive (compared to the rear). The shortlist for a new suspension setup was either the Wilbers setup, Hyperpro, or the Ohlins set. I spoke to a guy at Off The Road in Germany who was very helpful, suggested that the Wilbers shock was no good for off road use, as it has less travel than the original. Found it very difficult to get hold of the info for the Hyperpro suspension, all I could find was an uprated spring, and although this would solve the sag problem, I didn't think it would stop the wallowing back end. One of the issues with suspension is that its very expensive to upgrade. The ohlins were expensive, but were only 20% more than the Wilbers setup.


I had all of the stuff fitted by Motostion in Madrid, who are the local Ohlins agent. They were great, and I was able to watch, take pictures and help the guy who fitted them so next time I can service them myself. The parts needed are;


Rear Shock Ohlins part no. YA817
Front Fork Springs Ohlins part no. 08716-50
Fork Seals
Dust Caps
2l of 15W fork oil


Took us three hours to fit this lot, I reckon it would have taken me days if I had done it on my own!


First impressions of the bike were that it was much stiffer than with the OEM shock, but on the ride home from the dealer, I found the shock seemed to have more usable travel than the OEM shock.. So stiffer yet more compliant if that makes sense? Also the bike doesn't rear-up as much under hard acceleration, nor does it seem to dive as much under braking. After I test it some, I'll update this thread.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10677153/Frontforkout.jpg
Taking the front forks out

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10677153/Frontshock.jpg
Fork components laid out in the order they need to be replaced

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10677153/Sadten.jpg
Forks out

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10677153/rearshock.jpg
Rear shock fitted

Nice review, out of curiousity why did you change the fork seals?

Replaced Fork Seals
 

Long story, but a while ago I purchased some better quality fork seals from off the road in Germany. I was carrying these as spares. As the forks had been opened, I wanted them replaced and will carry the others as spares. Didn't make sense to carry the quality stuff as spares.

Prelim Report
 

As promised, here is a report of the full Ohlins suspension in the Tenere, I've had them fitted (new rear shock and front fork internals) for 5 days now and have done 250km's of driving on the setup since then. Yesterday I went out for a trip on mixed surfaces, 160km's on the tarmac, 70km's on gravel and 30 km's on some of my favourite tracks. I took it to places I had been to before, where I knew the surfaces and the way the Ten had behaved on them so I could get a more direct comparison between old and new. The old Sachs shock wasn't set as stiffly as the new Ohlins, I don't know all the techie bits, I have therefore commented only on the difference in ride quality, To me the differences are;

On the Road;

The difference on the road isn't huge, it rides a bit stiffer, is a lot less wobbly coming off a bump, it feels more planted than it used to. The noticeable difference is when you are accelerating, or under braking, here it's a different motorcycle, no more major dive on braking and no rearing like a rocking horse under heavy acceleration. My regular pillion tells me it's far more comfortable and that she no longer feels seasick from the rocking motion of gear changes. The rear shock copes much better than the old with varying loads. That is to say that previously I would have to put some more preload on the shock to take a pillion to avoid the ship-at-sea feeling, the new Ohlins shock seems versatile enough to cope with either a pillion or single rider without the need for adjustment. This is great for short trips to town with a pillion, as changing anything on rear shocks is a pain.

Off the Road;

Off the road the Ten is a transformed motorcycle, so much more supple, the bike feels so much more lively, I believe that this is because the shocks recover more quickly to the neutral position in preparation for the next bump. The ride is still stiff, but I can ride 10 to 15km faster per hour over the same surfaces than I could with the old suspension.

Is it worth it?

Probably not. Unless you plan on keeping your Ten for a long time, the stock suspension is acceptable. The longer you plan on keeping it, the more sense it makes.

It is nice though to feel the difference that a mod has made to the performance of your bike. I'd better make the most of it, in a week I won't notice the difference any longer!

I had a Nitron race shock built and fitted to the Ten at 10,000 miles after the OE Sachs had died, so I would suggest at some point people are going to be fitting aftermarket shocks, as the OE is poor.

Agreed, I decided to spend the money on handling, braking and refining the stock bike rather than dumping nigh on �800 (PCIII/V, silencer, and Air box) in an effort to chase a few HP.

Hi guys,

Thanks for this review and both your comments.
I'm currently considering the change to my suspension, mainly for the same reasons as you have stated Tripletom, and have considered going this route with the Ohlins setup front and rear. I've also considered getting the Hyperpro springs as a cheaper alternative, but at the end of the day I'd still be left with stock shock with no damping adjustment.
I've also been looking at the Nitron shock, but am not sure where I'd fit the reservoir as I have a scottoiler in the location you have fitted yours tripletom. If I look at a nitron with a piggyback reservoir then the cost difference between it and the Ohlins becomes less. The more I look the more confusing it gets!

Travelling Light, when you changed the fork springs did you need to completely strip the fork or could you just have taken the top cap off, drained the oil and replaced it and the new spring in the way people have described fitting the Hyperpro springs. Did you also repace the spacer? How do the forks feel over the bumps?

Thanks again Travelling light for the review and your comments. It's certainly been helpful and come along at the right time, and has just reinforced my view that changing the springs isn't a bad thing to do.

Hey Yorkie, it could be worth a call to Nitron to ask them to run a longer hose to the reservoir and mount it along one of the lower subframe rails near the pillion pegs.
On the fork springs, if you are just replacing the springs you can leave the fork legs whole, just replace the oil.

For info: the Ohlins shock has an 80N/mm spring rate, whereas the OEM Sachs is 70N/mm, which is probably why it supports the extra weight better, while the better damping reduces the need for adjustment...

Glad you like it! Like you say, for the majority of people, the expense is not perhaps worth it, however, there is a significant difference if you do decide to upgrade...

Jx

ps. You should try the WP forks - huge difference!

Your all making me hella jealous changing over to pretty forks ._.

Feedback
 

You can fit them in the same way as the hyperpro springs, I didn't replace the spacer. Forks feel firmer on the bumps, but seem to have more travel than the stock springs. I know this sounds like a contradiction, but its true. Probably the best way to put it is that I used to notice the original forks were taking a long time to recover to normal after a large compression (over a bump). with the new ones, I don't notice this at all. In fact they do such a great job that the front end has become unremarkable. Simply a suspension I can count on.

Hey Jenny, I'd like to, but these are huge money!

Yep, the Ten is more than powerful enough for me.

Hi Tripletom,

I have been in touch with Nitron and they did say they could make me a shock with a longer hose if I could find somewhere else to mount the reservoir. Were you thinking about positioning it between the subframe and the airbox on the outside of the bike or tucked away inside behind the pillion peg.
I had thought of somewhere in this location but I wanted to keep it away from the heat of the exhaust (something Nitron agreed was sensible) and as my bike has the akrapovics fitted I have a pipe running up each side of the bike. Having said that, there doesn't need to be much of a space between the exhaust and the reservoir to ensure heat transfer is minimised. You only need to look at the distance between the heat shield on the pipes and the exhaust itself to realise how small a gap is needed to prevent heat transfer.

I'm just a bit worried about ordering a shock and then finding out the hose is too short or too long.

I can have a measure later for you if you want mate, to give an idea of hose lengths and possible positions?
I would have suggested either of the positions you mentioned, or if your pipes allow it, on the subframe between the pillion peg mounts and the grab handles. You could always wrap a little heat tape around your silencer link pipe if it was too close.

Right, just been out and done some measuring.
First off I used a can of Wilkos fake WD40 as it's pretty close dimensions to the Nitron reservoir.

http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l2...d/IMG_4121.jpg

Looks to be the best place to put it. No chance of it snagging on the tyre, or your feet.
I measured up the hose from the shock to reservoir and it came up at 350mm �10mm (it's hard getting a tape in there). I put that length onto a spare braidewd hose I had and it would reach the Wilkos can fine, with a bit of spare (15-20mm). Hope that helps fella.

I put my Wilbers external reservoir in exactly that place. Fits nicely.

Those look like damper rods...

Kinda disapointing, but I suspected that the fork internals were old school. I hate the front end dive on the R, the rear shock is fine.

I wonder if having the rear shock rebuilt by racetech is possible. I'm pretty sure they already have cartridge emulators that would fit inside the 43mm Paioli forks, but I guess I'd have to take them apart to measure the damper rod, stanchion and spring for them to figure out which ones will fit. I'm pretty sure that the cartridge emulators will make more of a difference than the springs, the stock forks are a bit underdamped.

Not a big deal, I guess. This shock was converted from spin type to fusion type as soon as the shop found out there is not enough space to install it with fixed reservoir:
http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/2227/ts2mq.th.jpg http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/443...derbein.th.jpg
Length of hose should be easily adjustable by suspension experts.

Phil

Hi Flatboarder,

Is that a WP shock? Do you mind me asking which one it is? I was just looking at the WP site today and I thought it said they didn't make a shock that would fit the Ten.

I'm not sure it solves my problem as with the twin pipes I have fitted, the exhaust runs beside where you have mounted the reservoir, and I don't think it would be a good idea to have the reservoir close to that heat.

Thanks for the pictures anyway, it's all interesting stuff.

Here is more details (some table in german language, I hope numbers become clear):
http://flatboarder.de/cgi-bin/index....nere#federbein
It is a certain MX4014 Spin type shock which was modified completely both internally and externally to fit inside the Tenere. WP do not make a rear shock that would fit out of the box.
However, carefully check the rear shock travel available with all of those aftermarket shocks (see mentioned table), since most of them will definitely reduce rear travel considerably.
You would not feel that right away, since they work far better than stock rear shock, but in case you need all of the rear travel you would need to take into account.

Phil

hi travelling light ,

since you saw the installation yourself ,

I have a question,

I'm thinking to do exactly the same setup , I only have on bike , I have no car , and I drive it all year long , no matter what surface or weather ,

The front forks I would like to have done at my dealer , since this does not seem to be that easy to do yourself ...

I'm far from a handy mechanic, but I'm just trying to find out if I can fit the rearshock myself ,

looks quite easy as it is only held by two bolts , so then I'm thinking,

remove some stuff like exhaust and so on , remove shock , and replace the new one ...

is there some grease needed or is is just switching them ...
install and ready ...

I would like to do this together with a friend as two sets of hands are very welcome I suppose doing something like this

Your thoughts on this are highly apreciated !

I'm not the one you are asking, but I thought I'd put in my 0.02� anyway ;)

For the installation of my Wilbers I did everything myself. I'm not really a mechanic either so I made it easy on myself.

Imho there is no strict need to completely dismantle the entire front fork. You could do what I did: remove the caps, take out old springs pump out old feul and let the remainders drain out for a couple of hours. Then install new springs and oil put the caps back on and reinstall. Replacing the "bourages" as well is probably a good idea, but honestly, as long as the current ones are in good condition I don't do it myself.
I know some people have different opinions on this, but it has work very well for me so far on both the SV and the XT. It Also keeps the job a lot simpler ;)

Rear shock is not that difficult either, but indeed requires a lot of stuff to be removed first. Not hard, but a bit of work.

If you'd like some help, let me know. I'm far from an expert, but an extra pair of hands and a bit of experience at the job might come in handy :D

cool cool ! , it's not gonna be for now , probably around juli , but nice to see someone offering help :)

by the way If you're ever up for a tenere ride , but looking at for tracks now a while to organize offroad day and already have some very nice stuf, nog gps tracks yet but it's all in my head :)

The Ten is is full street trim at the moment, ready for a Gymkhana tomorrow, a trip through Luxembourg in 2 weeks and a 3 week tour through France and Spain in June.
But If you want to do some lanes I could also bring the DRZ :D

Hi Kemizz, sorry for the late response but I haven't been following this thread, I have attached a link to the installation instructions for the rear here. It's not difficult, but will take at least two hours. The guy who did mine didn't grease the bushes.
http://www.ohlins.com/Products/Mount...s/MI_YA817.pdf

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

no problem dude ,

another question on this suspension

OTR claims ohlins front forks springs are progressive , but I've been checking some stuff , but there is nothing about this on the ohlins site ,
when you saw the springs for your self , where they winded progressively ?

On another forum where dutch and belgian tenere riders gather , I've also been talking about this suspension upgrade ,

A guy also did some checks and asked a company specialized in customized suspension, and they told him if you drive road and offroad , go for wilbers or hyper as these are progressive , ohlins is linear making this a more offroad only orientated spring...

any thoughts on this ?

The Ohlins springs are not progressively wound, I don't see this as an issue. Plenty pics of me jumping my bike on the forum and I have never bottomed it out yet.

Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk

ok , thx ...,

I just need to decide :) either wilbers front or ohlins ,

back will be ohlins anyway

ok ok ok !

just installed my ohlins shock as I got it without doing any setup changes on rebound , damping etc ...

I took it for a quick ride round the block and also on a gravel road ,
oh my what a difference , short bumps are kinda hard, but the longer and deeper bumps suddendly feel like I'm floating over them ....

when I bought the shock they asked me how I ride , where , weight etc ... , and I suppose the shock was also setup from stock on my personal settings ...

so travelling light , or Jenny ? did you guys tested the shock "like you got it" or did you first did some settings on it before putting it on the motor ?

this is how I got it , it look like the sachs is much more tensioned then the ohlins spring ,making the spring look longer ...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2327/...cd3673af_o.jpg

Hi Kemizz - porn aren't they?!

I just stuck mine on, didn't touch a thing... like you, I found the difference appreciable straight away - although my OEM shock had done 23,000 miles of course.

As I understand it, the Ohlins shock has a slightly stiffer spring rate 80N/mm vs. 70 N/mm stock, and certainly one observer (a Mr Peterhansel, ahem) suggested the back end of my rally bike looked a little stiff, although I found it worked fine (maybe it could be even better, but Ohlins don't offer a softer spring)...

Certainly the damping characteristics are what marks out the Ohlins as a cut above, the bike feels very controlled and progressive - and of course if you are not racing it as light as possible, the slightly stiffer spring would be better for carrying luggage and/or a pillion of course...

I might fiddle with the damping at some point, but since it works so well, I just left it alone...

Jx

No further actions
 

I agree with JMO, I didn't touch the rear, it was set up by ohlins before they shipped it, I have been tempted to try and set the sag, but the shock is very difficult to adjust once fitted (especially the compression rate).

grr , just notice that already at the top of the spring , where it's first hitting the metal part of the shock , there is already a small crack in the paint , the yellow on the spring

seems I should be going back to the shop and ask for a brand new one ? of just let it like it is ?

a simple inquiry
 

does an extra turn in the Ohlins (9 verse 8) mean/equate to more abrupt ride, all else being equal?

maybe a standard shock and bigger spring is a cheaper option

the Ohlins yellow paint makes the price very expensive.

Hi Wottonboy - no, if anything it is the reverse - if the same 'load' is spread over a longer spring, it would be more plush as it has more distance/length to carry the same load.

The spring rate itself (ie. the tension that is put in when the coil is wound) is what dictates how harsh/abrupt the ride would be.

So for a given spring rate, the longer the spring, the less 'work' it has to do to support the load, so in effect it will feel more plush?

However, even if you could put in a longer spring, the overall length/travel is dictated by the stroke of piston in the damper, which is basically the same in the stock and Ohlins shock (you can seen the distance from the bottom of the damper casing to the rubber bump-stop).

Even if you could fit a [slightly] longer spring, all you would do is lose some of the preload distance on the stock shock - ie. you'd need to wind the preload rings up the thread to fit the longer spring?

Jx

Unless it is falling off in chunks, I'd just let it go - inevitably the spring coating is going to get marked/damaged through use (especially on a bike used off-road)... I'd keep an eye on it and see if it gets any worse in use, the shock has a warranty against manufacturing defects...

Jx

Yes I know , but when you look at the nice gold spring and suddenly see the crack , it's like , grrrrr , I paid a lot of money and now this ..., the sachs shock as no damage at all and had 20K on it

, look here is a picture I've sent to the dealer, in case it get's worse , I ask them to replace the spring ... , curious what their answer will be ..

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2711/...f4519b45_o.jpg

No I've seen the picture I'd tend to agree - that is a chunk alright, not just a crack...

I trust Ohlins will honour your claim, I'd want that sorted too...

Jx

Hi ,

my spring will be replaced , I just have to take my shock to the shop and they will put a new one on it ..

Hopefully now it doesn't reoccur .

so this weekend , took the ten for some serious offroad work on the ohlins setup ,

now today I feel the ohlins is more plush then before, does a new shock needs some "riding in" ? short bumps no longer feel hard , the entire shock feels softer then before, but then in a good way ...

another thing , could that be that the ohlins shock makes the ten a little bit lower then with the original one ?

friend of mine got on it while on the side stand and suddenly he says , hey I can touch the ground with both feet ? while before he hardly could ...

Hello Travelling Light (and others),

Just the other day I did a Balkan trip on my '08 tenere with standard stock/spring and hyperpro progressive springs on the front. My luggage weighted about 40 kg, including the panniers. With this this setup the shock damping (and handling of the bike) is terrible, the bike feels more like a crazy scrambler than a real motorbike :-)

http://www.imprest.ee/uploads/images/m13001_en_sca2.jpg

When riding solo, without luggage, I consider the original shock as acceptable (but not more than that)

Can you (or others) share some experiences with me (us) about riding solo but with luggage after the Ohlins upgrade? I don't mind spending (a lot of) money to upgrade the rear shock of my Tenere but only if it's worth it.....

riding with a passage or with luggage on the ohlins is just great

I didn't touch my settings for spring load etc and just kept on driving no matter what weight is on the bike

my girlfriend doesn't like the bike to sit on , and I can't blame here , it's noisy , bumpy, shaky and always dirty :) but since the ohlins spring she says she's much more relaxed on the bike ...

when driving solo it just feels great , although the bike feels stiffer and more jumpy on the road , it handles superb off road ....

One quick question please, how much did you spend to convert your bike over to Ohlins front and rear??? I am guessing that you spend 1500 Euros or thereabouts???? Thanks guys, Simon