changing the eyelit on a manitou swinger

[al-irl]

I have a manitou metal rear shock and a swinger 4 way. The bike in question belongs to a mate. He got the swinger second hand and it has a funny looking shock eyelit on the end of the piston. Theres no room for any of the usuall shock hardware to fit in. It has an m6 hole in it no room for any bushings etc. Was thinking of swapping over the the eyelit from the metal shock. It looks like it will be the right size.

Question is i have removed the air from the swinger and i presume i can just unscrew the eyelit off the shaft with out too much bother. With the metal there is no easy and obvious way to remove the preasure from the shock. I presume it is nitrogen charged. How do i this without the shock exploding and taking my head off

[Udi]

i presume i can just unscrew the eyelit off the shaft with out too much bother.

You presumed very wrong. Eyelets are usually torqued to the shaft quite hard, using a high-grade loctite. Undoing them is bound to be a bit of a mission, unless you have the manitou shaft clamps (or an equivalent) handy.

[al-irl]

You presumed very wrong. Eyelets are usually torqued to the shaft quite hard, using a high-grade loctite. Undoing them is bound to be a bit of a mission, unless you have the manitou shaft clamps (or an equivalent) handy.

I have the something that will hold the shaft. Just afraid of unscrewing the eyelit on the metal and have it fire off and take my eye out or something like that.

[JeffD]

Sounds like an OEM swinger off a Demo 8, which is what I'm running on my DHi.

Two options are to either run an 8mm shoulder bolt and make up your own spacers to shove in between the shock and frame or bore the eyelet out so that it's big enough to run production reducers/spacers.

I got the shoulder bolts at McMaster-Carr. Ran the setup all year w/no problems.

[al-irl]

Sounds like an OEM swinger off a Demo 8, which is what I'm running on my DHi.



I think your right there. I tried spacers but there is still a little bit of play in the eyelit of the shock.

[JeffD]

There's a teeny bit of play in mine - no more than slightly worn reducers on a normal setup. I can feel it if I lift my rear end from the seat by hand but not when riding.

[al-irl]

thats exactly whats going on with this one. would be warry of bending the shock bolt

[Udi]

Yeah that's not really a legit way of doing things. The steel bolt is going to wear against the alloy shock end, and the amount of play is only going to get worse over time.

I think your original idea of swapping the shock eyelets was a good one (assuming they are the same) - you should be able to deflate the metel shock by unscrewing the resovoir endcap. The small volume of air in there really doesn't make things as dangerous as they make them out to be, the air usually leaks out very quickly as you unthread the part (usually well before they are seperated completely, because the o-ring seal is right at the base of the threads).

If you don't want to do that, then the other option (as mentioned above) is to drill/machine out the existing eyelet to fit the standard manitou 14mm OD du-bushing, and run the standard hardware as usual.

[Bicyclist]

It's REALLY hard to get those eyeletts off. I tried and even when gripping the shaft w/ even pressure and rags it put a groove into the shaft.

[bikenweed]

I wouldn't be surprised if drilling out the eyelet was the best way to go.

[Bicyclist]

Yeah, I wish I would have done that. Of course the drill key for the drill press got lost at the shop and I had no other way of doing it.

[bikenweed]

Couldn't you just buy a new drill key or go to another shop?

[Bicyclist]

Well I needed to make it work in under an hour so I tried the vice.

[bikenweed]

A normal eyelet in comparison to the one in question.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v293/bicycleweed/IMG_0964.jpg

I find the 4Way to be plenty shock for me. If I do bad in a race, I know it's not the shock holding me back. Plus, it adds to the smug factor, knowing that if anyone ever beets me, it's probably just their shock giving them that advantage. ;)

[Bicyclist]

Dude, I was seriously BLOWN away at how much better my Demo rides with the DHX.

[Transcend]

A much simpler solution will indeed be to drill it. Not sure how long it would last, adn you'd have to be pretty careful with sizing, but getting the body caps off of a shaft is a hell of a job, even WITH the proper tools.

Many times during a factory rebuild, the techs will simple ditch the shaft AND body cap because if you try to remove them the shaft gets scratched. They are torqued down hard, and then loctited into place.

[bikenweed]

Dude, I was seriously shocked at how much better my Demo rides with the DHX.

Had to fix that for you.

Yah, it might ride a smidge better, but I can barely afford my gallon wine jugs and frozen pizza dinners, let alone tubes, chain lube and safe helmets. Some shock that might make a bike feel a little better and probably not go any faster is somewhere behind buying pair number three of pants on the shopping list. I've ridden a bunch of DHX equipped Demo's, and they all felt worse than my shock, too little dampening ending in a harsh bottom out curve.

[Bicyclist]

You pun master you.

That's a good point. If I didn't have cash burning a hole in my pocket combined with like no overhead it wouldn't be a priority.