suspension info?

[450raider]

now ive been wanting to do some diy on my r but have been afraid to touch anything motor related cam, carb, ect. but maybe i can do suspension without worrying about messing something up badly so can someone tell me the basics of shocks like what preload and dampening is about and what way i would have to turn those rings on top and what all tools i would need to do this. and does the back shock work the same way?

thanks

[tltcracing]

first off both shocks are the same to adjust. the rings you talked about are preload rings. they are mainy responcible for ride hight and jump trajectory*, that is weather you go higher or lower off of a jump. i use a hammer and a flat head screw driver, and the top one gets losened first by turning it counter clockwise if looking at it from the top. the other two adjustments on shocks are both dampening streangths. the small screw at the top of the shock deals with how fast the shock compresses. basicly you want the shock to bottom out once or twice a lap to acheve the best travel out of the shock. any more and you need to increase it(turn to the right), and if it doesnt bottom out at all then take some out(left turn). i recomend just doing two clicks at the most at one time, then going out and testing out the new setting. the screw at the bottom is rebound dampening, that is how fast the shock returns to full extention. if you increase the rebound then the shock will return back slowly and the oposite is true, less and it comes back faster. this is an adjustment you really need to stay on top of. if you have too much rebound dampening then the shock takes too long to return and stays compressed to much of the time. where as if you dont have enough then the shock tends to kick back too much and makes the ride very rough. you just have to get a feel to what it doing and then go from there. with all that said i say you should increase the rebound dampening by about 4 clicks all the way around and leave the compression alone untill you have a good grasp on what its doing wrong.