F800GS - RXV Shiver'ed Fork Conversion

Thanks for the replies! I'll keep looking into the forums and see what I can pick up. I'd rather not go through eBay if I don't have to.

Gotta get some oil here, then decide what to do about springs. What did you guys do? OEM Springs work out okay? I'm not planning a heavy load.

Mine had the stiffer springs offered by Aprilia. I figured I'd try them out and go from there. If they didn't I would have probably ordered a set of springs.

Got it. Guess I'll give the OEM ones a try, and if it's no good I'll have a suspension tuner figure out which springs I should get while they do the damping :)

When you take them apart you might see a marking on them that will tell you whether they are the lighter or stiffer version. Springs are only about $100 so take a look and see what you need.

The racetech sight might help but when you go there select the Aprilia RXV 450 and then for your weight out in your weight + the weight difference between the BMW F800GS and the Aprilia RXV 450. See what that recommends. (Do not go by what it says for the F800GS. They think its a street bike and it comes back with some very stiff springs recommended).

Just pulled the first RXV fork leg apart. I'll do the second then I need to get up the balls to pull apart the brandy-new F800 fork and cut into it :eek1

Might wait til I get at least 600 miles on it

First step in the fork damper swap today - pulling apart the aftermarket Marzocchi Shiver 45's.

Loosen top cap


Loosen bottom plug


Remove top cap


Pull out internals and dump oil out while cycling damper


Remove bottom plug and damper assembly comes out with a crapload more oil uke:


Pack it all up..

RaceTech 0.95kg. Based on the specs they should be way stiff but they work great.

Any of you guys have an extra set for the shiver 45 fork caps laying around I could buy? I need a set for my Caponord.

I know someone in Australia who does a Showa fork internal upgrade for the F800GS ... but it costs AUS$2,300 !

He has a set of Husqvarna Shivers I bought ... but they are going into my XChallenge. I'm tempted to get him to make a set of spacers to reduce the travel of the XC fork cartridges and put them into the 800 to see what happens. Stock the XC forks (which most people don't seem to like much!) are heaps better than the 800GS. The biggest fault with the 800 forks is they have no bottoming circuit ... so you use up the travel and they just keep compressing until ... crash! :eek1

epicxcrider how's your swap coming?

Dead in the water right now - big projects at work, moving to a new apartment, blah blah. Gotta get the time // courage to pull the fork off and take it into the shop - hopefully within the next month.

After a short trail ride today, this has just jumped pretty high up on my list. Damn that fork bottoms out super fast!! Feels great throughout most riding, then you hit about a 2" square bump and BAM that's a hard hit!

That is the limitation of a "pumping member" fork.

Picture a round cylandar with a hole in the bottom. Inside the cylandar is a plunger attached to the rod. The hole is all the valving the pumping member has. So when you push it hard on a square edge bump you max the hydrolic force and bam!!

Agreed! Looking forward to getting the dampers in. If I didn't have to machine the legs it would be done already!

Epicx, do you already have the place picked out where you'll have the machining done on the stock feet when you decide to take the leap? I recall one of the posts on the original thread mentioning that there was a shop out west who did most of the grunt work for the original job, but it would be a fortune to ship all the way out to Utah or Arizona (or wherever it was) from New England, to say nothing of the added time as riding season approaches.

I'll probably have it done at the machine shop at work, not sure yet. Ive been too busy riding but after some hard days off road this really needs to happen.

Any good machine shop should be able to handle it.

Ok, I spoke to the machinist at work and it looks like we might get to this on Saturday. Before I jump feet first, I want to gather some details from all who have done this:

*Did you all have the 40mm spacer put in place? If so, where exactly does it get installed in the damper? I looked at that photo but I don't see how it gets locked in place. Making the spacer is no problem, but if anyone runs without one I'd be interested to hear about it.

*What oil are you running? I'm thinking I'll run 10wt with the RXV Valving because I don't have a tuner to go to yet.

*Also planning on running the RXV springs that it came with. Need to determine what the actual rate is still but assuming it will be better than the stock ones.

*Did you replace the seals? This thing only has 3k miles on it, not much dirt. I'm thinking they should be fine but looking for opinions :)

Anything I'm forgetting? I'm shipping this bike to the left coast in about a month for a long trip so I'm trying to get this done ASAP but don't want to mess things up :)

Just out of interest, have you considered the guys at Factory Connection for doing the tuning? They're right there in Barrington, New Hampshire, and advertise on their site that they'll revalve and tune to rider spec with only about a three day turn-around.