What a fakkin palaver! Took my R rod off and compared to standard rod. As expected, standard rod too long by 40mm. Marks on longer rod show the depth of internal thread. I decided to cut of 15mm from each end of the long rod as I determined that it would mean the rod ends would be better seated in the rod, rather than sticking out so much as they were on the R rod. Cutting the ally rod was a breeze. Unfortunately, due to the depth of internal threads, the rod ends bottomed out before they could be screwed in sufficiently to achieve the required 243mm centre distance. Bollocks...didn’t have an M12 x1.25mm tap, LH let alone RH, so decided to cut 12mm off each rod end male thread. Seven, yes seven, hacksaw blades later, I had cut down the two threaded parts of the bearings. Put them all together and all looked great! Reduced the centre length to 241mm as I think It was like that a few years back. One last thing... Put the rod back on the bike...blimey it’s tight on the shock spring! Got a couple of mm space, now I know why the R rod is fat in the middle but then tapers to a parallel end - it’s to give clearance on the spring. Simples....
As shock compresses, the clearance increases. I reckon it’ll be ok even when it extends as I checked it while on the ABBA stand with no load on the wheel.
Got my R rod NDT Inspected today at work...no cracks! All the above was therefore a complete waste of time!! Now that I've cut down my rod end bearings, I need to get some more to fit back into the R rod. Oh I love it!!
