1100 telelever knock (shock wear?)

thander

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Dear GSers here I am again...

It's been some time since I bothered you with the strange behavior of my telelever but my problems have not ended with the specific part of my bike...And, it has been really frustrating...


It's been a while now (or more than 'a while' actually) that I am noticing strange knocks on the handlebars.
They are noticed easier when I push the bike (by hands) on even slight road bumps, or on gravels or on small potholes or stones. Actually, if the surface is not totally flat, I get the knock. Of course, they are noticed when riding at small speeds as well, which is, at least, not very confident-inspiring...

The knock is on the handlebars. I tried holding the bike from the middle of the bars (to make sure it is not the end of the bars that's causing the problem, which are separate) but still the same knock.

Summing up all the replacements on the telelever (due to this knock and the previouse 'flexing' issues) so far we have:
1. telelever main ball bearing (some 40k km ago, but it has no play, I am sure it is fine).
2. upper tripple clamp rubber joint links (15k km ago)
3. plastic and bronze internal bushes (15k km ago)
4. wheel bearings (5k km ago)
5. upper tripple clamp bearing (3k km ago)
6. front shock (bought a second-hand 1150 item, which behaves much the same).

Only think not replaced yet is the telelever Y swingarm's bearings but they don't seem to have play.

Last week, I removed the shock with my mate, and tried to discover some kind of play, without any luck unfortunately.

After some investigation, we tried to compress the shock by hand (off the bike) and found increased friction at the start of its travel.

So, excluding all other parameters, we think that it is possible that the shock is the cause of the knock. It probably has some kind of wear on the shaft or some other internal part and has non-smooth behavior at the start of its travel, which translates to knock on the bars.
And, since 1150 and 1100 front shocks seem alike, it seems reasonable that both the shocks I have (1100 and 1150 one) give the same knocks...
(although, the odds are that the wouldn't, both, have the same amount of wear...)

Has anybody noticed any similar knocks on their Telelever?
And, if yes, has anybody found a connection to the shock wear, or any other cause?

Thanks in advance guys...
 
Had the same sort of thing on my 1100R, turned out to be the rubber bush thing at the top of the shock
 
Had the same sort of thing on my 1100R, turned out to be the rubber bush thing at the top of the shock

Hi there!

I thought about this as well, but it seemed fine, and I do have two pairs of those (since I got two shocks).
You suggest that the rubber bushes have hardened from age? Because they seem fine in shape...
(although the bottom one has taken the shape of the frame, where it fits)
 
All the forces are on those rubber bushes, they locate the top of the shock. Just saying it was these that were the cause of my 'knocking' front suspension.

Maybe you could try packing them with more washers to find out for sure.
 


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