Hey, I am preparing my '89 tenere for a trans african trip. Is it necessary to get harder springs and to change to thicker oil in the shock absorbers? I will be carrying 40+ l of fuel and water (+ the fuel in the tank offcourse) on the remote parts of the trip.
I know very little about suspension so anything will be of help.

Thanx

Definitely ! with such a load you need a better and stiffer mono and also ti improve the fork behaviour ..for mono an alternative
to the very good and costly WP or Ohlins is www.bitubo.com

for the fork , the sipliest way is to preload the springs with a metal spacer and to increase oil viscosity ... better again if is possible to find a TT fork (maybe used) that is stronger .

Hey, I have decided to get some harder springs for the rear. How hard should they be relative to the current spring. SOme one said that I should go for something like 50-100% stiffer.
Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanx.

hi,

just got my oehlins rear shock serviced here in Perth Australia. Oh, yes, I am riding a 1989 1VJ Tenere around the world.

I put the oehlins shock in in Istanbul after my original was starting to leak oil. It has been good for 80.000km thru Mongolia, twoup in Cambodia, and a lot of other rough roads.

After all the corugation here in Oz it was in a bad condition and needed the service (40USD).

I use a 85kg spring, but I wish I had a stronger one (the price for an upgrate here is about 90USD) for two up in the outback.

If you want to carry all that fuel and water, you need a good shock absorber.

Progressive fork springs (Technoflex) I use since I arrived in Australia, the original ones where finished after 120.000km (maybe I could have got more ks out of them with a metal spacer and new oil)

Have fun in Africa

MIKA