Explorer kit owners beware!

TCSKIBIKE said:

"I'm an engineering student so some of the mechanical concepts make a whole lot more sense to me than many of you, I'm sure. "

If you are such a brilliant engineering student, why did it take you two forks to notice the inherent weakness of the design and finally improve on it? Listen, you don't know who any of us are here so don't assume we are a bunch of idiots. Your engineering degree that you have not received yet may pale in comparison to what some of us do.

It sucks about your forks and it sounds like there is room for improvement, my suggestion is to find a Snowhawk it out performs both hands down no contest.

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I had a feeling someone would take that statement to the extreme. I said "many" not "all" or even "most" of you. I know that many people are not mechanically minded and don't know how to work on their own equipment, so I don't expect them to understand the forces involved in designing a power sports machine. That statement is for those people. If you know your stuff, great, that statement is NOT intended for YOU. I was not intending to slam anyone.

It didn't take me two forks to find the weakness. Just ask Mike. I was trying to get AD B to make me larger dowels right after the first time. They said [paraphrasing] "oh the bolts weren't torqued properly" and sent me the same parts. That was a viable possibility, though I thought unlikely, so I put them back on and ended up breaking it again. Turns out (like I thought) it wasn't the torque of the bolts that was at fault.

I wish I could afford a snow hawk, I would prefer to have one of those hands down.

As for the set up DefBoy, the bike is set up for my summer riding with my weight, riding style etc. I had to put on a heavier rear spring after getting the bike but the fork springs were OK (per the Race Tech website). Either way, unless I get a bunch of ice built up all over the bike I'm not changing the sprung weight (the bike came right out of the garage at the time of the second failure). The ski's weight may be different than the wheel but that change shouldn't affect how easily the front end bottoms. It would affect the handling in high speed situations, but I'm not worried about that as my problems have been low speed impacts that eat up the travel. The point I was getting at though is that the kit is sold as a plug-and-play operation. The literature says that there are no modifications necessary to the bike so I SHOULDN'T have to buy extra parts and change my fork setting all around. I'm riding the same terrain I do in the summer.

Super moto to enduro would require different suspension for someone serious, but you could throw super moto wheels on an enduro and have a blast even though you're sitting up higher. Enduro to the snow isn't that big of a change. If anything the snow is less demanding as you don't have all the roots, square rocks etc, not to mention that when the suspension fluid gets colder it tends to be more viscous anyway.

As for the high speed summer hack, those older Yamaha's are notorious for that in stock form. They can get better with professional revalving, but for the cost to to it I can deal with the hack as it's not THAT bad, just annoying. They work great until you start running 60+ mph over washboard terrain, then you start feeling it through the bars.

I picked up replacement forks off eBay. I can get the pair cheaper than the approximate $230 that Yamaha wants for the lower fork tube alone.

buffaloHAWK said:

i hate em', they make a mechaincs life miserable!!!

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LOL. I hear ya there! I find myself often thinking when I'm working on my car "who ever designed this should be shot!". Granted with out engineers we wouldn't have anything to work on.

What are you asking about the fork bottoming? It bottomed out when the fork broke, but it doesn't bottom out on a regular basis in the snow.

I have it set up for woods riding, not motocross so it will bottom out easier than motocross forks, but that would be expected. I do bottom them out on occasion dropping off ledges or getting air off berms/hills etc on trails in the summer. 98% of the riding I do in the summer doesn't bottom out hard enough for me to tell, not saying it doesn't, but I can't feel if it does.

Does that answer your question?

No worries on the hard time thing...I can see where you're coming from.

I remember reading an article in Dirt Bike magazine a while back though that said if the suspension is set up right, you WILL bottom out on largest hits that you will normally encounter. The idea being that if it's tuned properly, for 95% of the riding you are using as much of the travel as possible for the normal stuff you're riding over. If the suspension is set up so stiff that it NEVER bottoms, the forks won't compress on the small stuff, transferring most of the energy to the bike/rider.

You don't cause damage every time you bottom out one end or the other as there are dampers built in to keep from doing just that. About any review of a dirt bike you see in the magazines will talk about the bottoming characteristics, good or bad. The good being that you don't feel it as much when it bottoms.

That's the point of view I've always taken, and it seems logical to me. No offense, but setting up the suspension so it NEVER bottoms out seems ridiculous. Might as well not have any suspension at all for 95% of the riding. :beer;