We have made it to Boliva on this trip and are doing some of the best trails and unpaved roads on the trip so far!
Sadly Robbie's ruined her old shock and it shot all the oil out, bit of a shame! Quite lucky it was now rather than in a few weeks time as we are planning on riding to Manaus, Brazil which is in the Amazon.
I can't seem to find it but does anyone know the original spring rate? I can see a seal on Steve's shop but does anyone know if there is a dust seal required too?
We are in the middle of nowhere so bouncing along to La Paz to assess our options.
Hopefully it can be fixed locally as I'm not sure there's too many aftermarket options to send over and she's not having mine 😆
Bad luck Robbie!
The easiest after market is Hagon, who built one for Mikemikettrbike, so will have the pattern.
Poste restante at the main PO in La Paz used to be really reliable. These days travelers don't often use such facilities so I can't say if much has changed. (By the way, the only place I ever got mugged in 11 years on the road was outside the main PO in La Paz! Broad daylight, 3 guys "bumped into me" in the busy street and went through my pockets taking $100 I was carrying to go and buy a guitar! Really impressive operation, bastards!)
Take the boat from Iquitos to Manaus - won't need much riding then! But the road to Iquitos might be entertaining without damping! Can't say much for Manaus as a parcel collection point. It's a bit wild west up there! Maybe DHL or someone might be professional enough but who knows, and Brazil customs likely to be on the ball for import duty where Bolivia less so.
Good luck!
I have a quote from them but they are a little slow on their responses to a few questions, hopefully they'll get back soon!
We are going to go to a recommended mechanic in a few hours to see about rebuilding it, Brian seems pretty positive that someone should be able to rebuild, I hope his optimism is right 🙂
Noted about the daylight Robbery, we'll try to keep what wits have have about us 😆 La Paz is no where near as chaotic as I thought it would be, It was a city we were most nervous about riding with but the bike proved themselves to be suitable.
To get to Iquitos would probably take as long to get to as Manaus, but we will take a ferry from there to the east coast.
Two other issues, we went to a mechanic to swap from the 325 which was burning oil to an oversized 250 and they really messed lots of things up. Thankfully I rectified things and they are mostly okay now. Annoyingly despite instructions and Brians guide they did not set the clutch up correctly after changing the plates etc. Now the bikes clutch has started to slip for the first 10km then afterwards behaves correctly. Freeplay and oil are correct so that will need sorting.
My front disc has warped for the second time now, I changed all the slides and rubbers with OEM parts but there is still a small amount of free play in the caliper when rotated length ways. I did also notice that the left and right fork was slightly different levels, maybe 0.5mm absolute max, teaches me to rush a build before a trip!
Dropped it off at the highly recommended mechanic, he seams to think he'll be able to adapt a seal but if we heavily load it it may only last 6-8 months. Not sure how it'll go but we will see. He also said he should be able to adapt the shock to be stiffer somehow.
For me and I guess most people it seems strange adapting another seal but then again people here seem to work with what they can get to create solutions.
Another vote for the Hagon shocks, just fitted one too my Raid and it's a really nicely built thing. Obviously if you can repair what you have there, much easier!