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After some advice from banner (the bike god lol)

I'm looking at replacing the bearing in the rear shock linkage and greasing them all up.

I'm looking at buying another linkage to replace these and then just was the linkage with the current one.

Are the H model linkage with the grease nipples the same as a L model

Its an odd one, the h has a slightly different geometry to the l, it will work but the suspension will behave differently from how its supposed to.

As for the grease nipples, the microfiche, workshop manual, and Cradley say that the l comes with grease nipples, but I've never seen one on an l, its still available from new so I'll buy one for my l4 when I do the suspension.

H linkage works fine on an L

Some would say the H linkage works better, at least it works better for me.

The H linkage, particularly the H1, will make the rear feel slightly softer, good or bad depending on the surface and how enthusiastic you are, for smooth roads and heroic riding the L linkage every time, at the end of the day the standard rear shock is crap, although stripping the rear to inspect and replace any bad bearings as well as greasing etc will be more of an improvement than simply replacing an L with an H linkage, the bearings which tend to be bad are in the linkage too.
As far as the grease nipples go, they do not actually really work, this is from a suspension specialist btw, hence Mr Kawasaki getting shot of them on the L.



If you want the rear to feel good get the wallet out.

KwakKwak wrote:The H linkage, particularly the H1, will make the rear feel slightly softer, good or bad depending on the surface and how enthusiastic you are, for smooth roads and heroic riding the L linkage every time, at the end of the day the standard rear shock is crap, although stripping the rear to inspect and replace any bad bearings as well as greasing etc will be more of an improvement than simply replacing an L with an H linkage, the bearings which tend to be bad are in the linkage too.
As far as the grease nipples go, they do not actually really work, this is from a suspension specialist btw, hence Mr Kawasaki getting shot of them on the L.



If you want the rear to feel good get the wallet out.

Have to disagree with you KwakX2, smooth tracks are all I race on these days and I'll take the H linkage over the L, and that's using my Penske Triple clicker shock. Until I changed linkages I couldn't run a soft tire without tearing, with the H link I can run the soft without ruining the tire. That's running Pirelli's, 160's on the stock width rear and now running a 180/55 with a zx6r 5.5 wheel.

AFM327 wrote:and that's using my Penske Triple clicker shock.

You've kinda made my point, I'm talking about the standard shock with assorted linkage, and you obviously did get your wallet out, bike becomes a different animal with a Penske or better still an Ohlins .
Different spring rate etc, different progression, different bottom out, simply no comparison with changing the linkage with a standard shock.

Are you running an H1 or H2 linkage??

As for the grease nipples they do not put the grease where it needs to be, just encourage laziness, ie not servicing the rear properly, I can honestly picture some spraying WD40 into them, as I imagine did Mr Kawasaki.

You will probably agree with me that setting up suspension is a pain in the ass, I nearly binned my RR yesterday, rear was all over the show, and until yesterday I was more than happy with it, now either I've lost a load of weight, someone has sneaked into my garage and "tweaked" it, or my hope, the strong winds yesterday were catching the rear every time I hit a bump, it was quite ridiculous at times.

Setting up suspension isn't too tough, take the bike over to the suspension guy at the track, he makes adjustments and you go back out and see how it feels. Once it's in the ballpark as far as springs go it's all smaller adjustments. I prefer my Penske's to ohlins, I've had both of them. I don't need a spring compressor to swap springs on the penske and they're very modular. Get a new bike, change out some parts, adjust the valving and spring and you have a good shock on the new bike.

I'll still take the H2 link over the L link, much less progressive, more linear in action.

AFM327 wrote:Setting up suspension isn't too tough, take the bike over to the suspension guy at the track, he makes adjustments

Brilliant, everything's easy when you get someone else to do it.

Ohlins on mine felt so good, i had no need to mess about with the linkage, the H1 is the least progressive, I just sold one, never actually tried it on the bike.